Saturday, May 16, 2009 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
By Ian Ocampo Flora
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- The City Government here held a half-day consultation with barangay officials here at the Heroes Hall in a bid to attain a P1.2 billion collection from real property taxes (RPT) for 2010 through grassroots support from various sectors.
According to Mayor Oscar Rodriguez, the consultation with the barangay officials of the city composed of barangay captains, treasurers and secretaries is part of the series of talks that aim to improve real property tax collection.
“We plan to improve our RPT collection. This year we have around P600 million, we are targeting P1.2B for the entire 2010 fiscal year,” Rodriguez told Sun.Star.
He said that currently, only 50 percent of RPT is being collected by the city.
But the city mayor said that this is about to change, as the city is already implementing proper classification of real properties through an effective tax mapping system.
The City Government has also come up with a new revenue code and has instituted new revenue system collection that includes extensive motivation and inclusion of new ideas among the business sector.
“We are also going to tap the help of teachers and business leaders to help us with the information campaign and explaining to all concern the importance of fully implementing an effective RPT collection,” Rodriguez stressed.
Rodriguez said the targeted collection will finance the various programs of the city. Among the major beneficiary projects of the targeted collection includes the City College of San Fernando, the Sagip-Ilog rehabilitation project, funding for integrated schools, and market development.
Around 1.2 percent of the said expected collection is aimed at financing the growing Special Education Program of the city.
Rodriguez said that if the city could not improve its RPT collection, the City Government would not be able to provide for the growing social and development needs of the city.
“What we are aiming for is to make San Fernando a global gateway to the
Northern Philippines. We can only achieve this if we can properly distribute and manage public wealth through sustainable and high-impact government programs,” he said.
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