CORRECT TAXES. Photo shows one of the major streets in Tacloban City where most of the businesses are located, as the city government started reassessing on Monday (September 9, 2019) the value of 36,312 real properties in the city to ensure that owners are paying the correct taxes. (Photo courtesy of Tacloban City government)
TACLOBAN CITY -- The city government has started reassessing the value of 36,312 real properties here to ensure that their owners are paying the correct taxes.
In a press statement issued Wednesday by the city government, up for reassessment are 32,925 residential units, 3,340 business establishments, and 47 industrial buildings.
City assessor’s office head Danilo Demillo said in the statement that the real property inventory operation started on Monday, three years after the last assessment in 2016. It will run for six months.
“The real property assessment is performed to verify and determine as to whether or not all real properties in the city are properly listed in the assessment roll, eliminate from the records taxable properties which have been destroyed or incurred a permanent loss of value, and purge the rolls of double assessment entries,” Demillo said.
The activity also aims to decrease the assessment of properties that suffered physical and economic losses. The initiative is based on a memorandum by the Bureau of Local Government Finance issued in 2013.
The city government has deployed two teams to conduct the reassessment with the assistance of village officials.
The Department of Finance earlier reported that local government units in the country lost about PHP30.5 billion in collections a year due to the outdated valuation system for real properties.
Republic Act No. 7160, or the Local Government Code of 1991, requires the updating of the schedule of market values every three years. (PNA)
