Dagupan sees surplus tax collection this year
THE Dagupan City government expects a huge bonanza from its revenue collections this year, perhaps a first in the city’s history.
In her report to Mayor Belen T. Fernandez during the weekly executive session, City Treasurer Romelita Alcantara projects that her administration can expect to exceed its target collection of P628 million this year by more than P14 million.
She said her projection is based on the tax collections registered from January to October, registering P561 million or 89.31 percent of the collection target.
With two more months remaining before the year ends, Alcantara said she is confident that her office can collect more than P80 million, to end the year well above the P628 million target.
Fernandez congratulated Alcantara for the impressive turnaround in tax collection in the city in just less than two and a half years of her administration. She recalled that the city was almost in the red, incurring huge deficits, when she took over the helm of the city.
Alcantara attributed the unprecedented increase in collection to the intensified efforts to examine books of accounts of businessmen in the city that led to the collection of P9.9 million more in addition to increase in collection from all sources of revenues under the direction of Mayor Fernandez.
Some business companies were subjected to Presumptive Income Level (PIL) approach after failing to present their 2013 financial statements.
The city treasury also managed to collect P3.6 million in property transfer tax paid by the Philippine National Bank for 17,000 square meter property it transferred with a zonal valuation of P35,000 per square meter.
Fernandez said the surplus is timely for her planned socialized housing project which was only allocated P3.5 million.
The mayor ordered the payment of all accounts payable on or before December 31, 2014 in sharp contrast to the practice of the previous Lim administration that used new budgets to cover a past year’s obligations, a practice deemed illegal by the Commission on Audit (COA).
She also sustained her policy not to pay suppliers disallowed by COA, particularly those that did not go through public bidding.
One of the projects disallowed by COA to be paid is a two-storey building near the Dagupan City Poolside reportedly built by a contractor without any bidding nor award from BAC. (LVM)
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