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Bacolod City, Philippines Monday, May 21, 2012
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Mayor: Junk appeal
vs. revenue code
BY CHRYSEE SAMILLANO
Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia is asking the Department of Justice to dismiss the appeal filed by two business groups questioning the legality of Ordinance No. 565, Series of 2011, or the Revised Revenue Code of Bacolod City, and to declare the new tax code as constitutional for having been passed in compliance with the Local Government Code.

In the case filed by the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc.and the Bacolod Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. against Leonardia and other city officials, they asked the Justice Secretary to declare C.O. 565 as unconstitutional and/or illegal for having been passed without complying with the mandatory requirements of the Local Government Code and its Implementing Rules and Regulations.

They said C.O. 565 amended and increased the rates of business taxes previously imposed under Ordinance 93-001, beyond the allowable tax rate adjustment ceiling as provided for by law.

In his comment, Leonardia said there is nothing unconstitutional in the promulgation and implementation of the city’s new revenue code.

He said the city’s 1993 revenue code was long overdue, after the lapse of 18 years of low and obsolete tax rates having been enjoyed by the businessmen-members of MBCCI and BFCCCI.

The imposition of the new tax rates was based on the tax rates purely copied from the provisions of the Local Government Code and that the city’s tax charges is now LGC-compliant for the first time in 18 years of since the effectivity of the LGC, Leonardia said.

He said that barely a few months after the city had passed and approved C.O. 565 in the later part of 2011; in January 13, 2012 the DOJ and the Department of Interior and Local Government issued their joint memorandum circular no. 2012-01 directing the local government units to update their local revenue code pursuant to the mandate of both the Constitution and the LGC, he said.

Leonardia said that in the old 1993 Revenue Code, while the income becomes bigger the tax payments were mal-adjusted to become lower than that mandated by the LGC, thus, the effect is the unconscionable inequitability, contrary to the sound principle of “Equitable Taxation.”

This is not to mentionthat the effect implies a virtual regressive mode of taxation in that while theintended taxpayers who earn in few thousands were mandated to pay the increased tax rate under the LGC, on the other hand, the richer taxpayers or those earning millions were only charged a much lower tax rate away from the mandate of the LGC, he said.

Leonardia said Bacolod City is not the only LGU that revised its old tax code to comply with the mandate of the LGC but its neighboring component cities such as Talisay, Bago, San Carlos and Kabankalan, in Negros Occidental, who even complied much earlier than Bacolod.

The proposed Revised Revenue Code of Bacolod City, Series of 2010 was passed on November 9 and 10, 2011 under the 71stregular/special sessions of the Bacolod Sangguniang Panlungsod and that several copies of the proposed ordinance was posted in the bulletin boards of offices in the government center, City Hall, public plaza and the three major markets.

It was approved on third and final reading by the SP on November 10, 2011 and was published in Sunstar Bacolod on November 28, 29, and 30, 2011 and posted for three consecutive weeks in public markets and offices of the city government, he added.

Meanwhile, Leonardia said the appellants (MBCCI and BFCCCI) admitted that they are representing the business sectors in Bacolod City that obviously includes Rolling Hills Memorial Park Inc. represented by former Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella, which also filed an appeal before the DOJ under the same allegations impugning the new revenue code but which was dismissed by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.

No doubt, these parties dividing their abhorrable acts of pitting the DOJ against the Court or one against the other for a possible conflicting opinion or ruling, obviously constitutes forum shopping, he said.

The comment of the city officials was filed by their legal counsels Joselito Bayatan, Romela Amarilla and Edward Joseph Cuansing on May 8.*CGS

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