Thursday, August 6, 2009 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES [ BusinessWorld Online ]
THE TAGUIG City government is looking at collecting fees from the developers of McKinley Hill Cyber Park, Total Corporate Center and Market! Market! instead of collecting from the firms registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) operating in the areas.
City Administrator Wilfredo C. Villar said in a telephone interview that the city government is discussing the plan and the amount of fees to be collected with PEZA.
"We are looking at collecting fees from developers instead of the locators for government services such as waste management and sanitation inspection for locators are complaining about the fees and we would not want to drive them away," he said.
Under Section 23 of Republic Act 7916, or the Special Economic Zone Act of 1995, business establishments operating within PEZA-administered ecozones are entitled to incentives such as exemption from the payment of local government imposts, fees, licenses or taxes, except real estate taxes; four to six years of income tax holiday (ITH); as well as a tax of 5% of gross income after the ITH expires in lieu of the corporate income tax.
On May 8, the city government signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with PEZA to collect fees from locators in E-Square I.T. Park to include a quarterly waste management fee of P50-P1,000 depending on the aggregate area of the business, a P6,000 annual mayor’s permit fee, annual permit fee on exercise of profession of P300 per worker, an annual health certificate fee of P100 per person of managerial or supervisory rank and P50 per person for the rank-and-file, annual sanitary inspection fee of P50-P1,100 depending on the aggregate area, and P750 city card fee for non-city residents laboratory and other health benefits.
Elmer H. San Pascual, PEZA promotions and public relations officer said they would want to have all agreements to be the same as that of E-Square.
"All the buildings are in Taguig and we would like to have one type of MoA for all IT buildings in the area. We would like everything to be uniform," he said in a telephone interview. — Louella D. Desiderio
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