STAKEHOLDERS. Businessman Ruperto Cruz, also chair of the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement, takes the cudgel for landowners distraught with the planned RPT hike.
PHOTO BY BONG LACSON
ANGELES CITY – A “position paper” signed by officers of the Metro Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (MACCII) dated November 15 was deemed moot after the sangguniang panglunsod (SP) here agreed to lower the “assessment level” of the proposed increase in valuation for the application of the Real Property Tax (RPT).
But during the jampacked fourth public hearing of the city council’s Ways and Means Committee at the city hall here yesterday, MACCII President Tito Lazatin argued that a “technical working group (TWG)” should have been constituted before any final determination of the proposed increase in valuation.
Lazatin labeled the proposed RPT increase as “unjust, excessive and unreasonable.” The MACCII position
paper pegged the increase in across-theboard rates as 150 percent for residential, 100 percent for commercial, and 100-500 percent for memorial parks and all classification will be on status quo among others.
However, the chief of the Assessment and Appraisal Division of the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) Central Office, Mercy Santos, said the TWG is no longer required since the city assessor has already done a tedious job of coming up with the land valuation which is pegged at P2,500 per square meter.
She said a “revision” is mandated under the Local Government Code which requires it every three years. It is a schedule of market values for the payment of RPT mandated by law and not by the national or the local governments. It is the city assessor who comes up with the value per classification.
It is unlike the zonal valuation set by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) which is used only when there is transfer of ownership of the property, she explained. Santos said the highest valuation in the city for residential classifi cation is Villa Teresa Subdivision where a 600-square meter lot is multiplied by the unit value and then multiplied by 20 percent assessment level which is the maximum set by law and then multiplied again by the tax rate which would then only come up with the RPT.
Councilor Amos Rivera said the 20 percent assessment level can still be negotiated by the city council for a lower assessment value which in this case has been pegged at 12 percent. If the RPT is computed under the 12 percent assessment level, then the RPT for a 600 square-meter lot for Villa Teresa would only increase by 140 percent, he explained which is 10-percent lower than the 150 percent increase proposed by MACCII.
OIC City Assessor Lea C. Dizon said the prevailing market value is only P500 per square-meter (psm) while under the new valuation it is now P2,500 psm. But in actuality, the value of the land can reach as high P17,000 psm in Villa Teressa, she said.
Meanwhile, Rivera said if the RPT for residential properties will not go over the ceiling set by MACCII in its position paper of 150 percent, then the issue for residential lots is settled. Rivera said the only issue would be the value of commercial properties which under the MACCII proposal would be “per actual use.”
But he said the city council would still finalize if commercial properties which are not used for business should be spared from paying under a commercial classification.
