“Barking up the wrong tree”
DON’T look at us.
This was the gist of the response of the office of the City Mayor to the threat of Atty. Gonzalo Duque, president of the Lyceum Northwestern University (LNU), to sue the city government over the latter’s insistence to collecting business taxes from private schools in the city.
Undaunted by the lawsuit threat, City Administrator Vladimir Mata contended that it was the sangguniang panglungsod that enacted the revised city revenue code of 2007 being implemented by Mayor Benjamin Lim.
“The city council should, therefore, be held as a respondent in Duque’s planned court suit,” came Mata’s reaction in the press release issued by the city hall.
The consensus at the mayor’s office is Duque is “barking up the wrong tree.”
Mata pointed out that the taxation on private schools is a result of a legislative decision and all the executive can do is to implement every ordinance passed by the SP.”
In defense of the implementation of the taxation ordinance, Councilor Brian Lim, minority floor leader, insisted that in the light of the doctrine of estoppel and laches, private schools have slept on their rights to be free from taxes so they cannot assert exemption anymore.
Duque refuted Lim’s contention.
The councilor also urged Duque to wait for the decision of the court on the pending case filed by the University of Luzon and to act only “after judgment has been served.”
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