HOT SEAT. Angeles City Administrator Dennis Pamintuan explains rationale of the proposed increase in real property taxes before stakeholders at the city council hearing. Presiding over the hearing are councilors Bryan Nepomuceno, Carmelo Lazatin, Jericho Aguas, Edu Pamintuan and Danica Lacson.
PHOTO BY BONG LACSON
ANGELES CITY – Stakeholders in the real estate industry here as well as ordinary landowners are up in arms against the proposed increased in valuation for the application of the Real Property Tax (RPT). During the third public hearing of the Committee on Ways and Means of the City Council yesterday, Louie Reyes of the Metro Angeles Realtors Board, Inc. (MAREB) said the City Assessor should have made a gradual increase in the land valuation for RPT rather than what seemed to be as high as a 600 percent average increase.
Reyes said his group is not opposed to an increase per se, but to the “unreasonable and exorbitant one being proposed by the City Assessor.” “There should be a win-win solution so that even the ordinary taxpayers will not have a hard time coping with the increase,” he said.
Metro Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (MACCI) President Tito Lazatin distributed copies of the proposed land valuation which showed that some barangays will have as high as a 957 percent increase.
Leony De Leon who identified herself as an ordinary taxpayer proposed that the City Assessor should have considered “the paying capacity of the landowners.”
She complained that her property of 8.6 hectares in Barangay Cutud, which is classifi ed as an agricultural land, is unproductive because of lack of irrigation among others and is also infested with informal settlers.
She said the barangay even uses it for its activities without giving her any compensation. But City Assistant Assessor Lea C. Dizon said that the landowner can opt for a remedy via the “tax option” during the assessment level and could even request for a moratorium as in the case of De Leon who complained of informal settlers on her property.
She said there are 122,000 Real Property Units (RPU) in the city which include individual and corporate land titles, buildings and machineries. Dizon explained that before they arrived at the present valuation, they gathered data and consulted with banks as well as private appraisers, property developers and even the MAREB and other stakeholders.
She added that the City Assessor used opinion values to determine the lowest valuation and not the actual Deed of Sales of RPUs which could definitely yield a much higher valuation.
However, Councilor Brian Nepomuceno said the City Assessor should not be adamant in its proposed increase in valuation which averages about 400 percent from his view but should opt to have a staggered or gradual increase even if the last increase in valuation was made in 1995.
On the other hand, City Administrator Albert Dennis Pamintuan said the pressure to implement the increase is from the national government, particularly from the Department of Finance (DOF). He said the Aquino administration is very strict and the city government is mandated to follow the law.
He said the DOF has been informing them to implement a general revision of the land valuation which is “mandatory” under the law. Jericho Aguas, chair of the Ways and Means Committee, explained that the increase in RPT will redound to the benefit of the people in terms of 100,000 city scholars, and 10 to 15 kilometers of concrete roads among others.
Another public hearing is set next Tuesday to determine the final valuation for the RPT application.
