ANGELES CITY – The income of the city government for the past six months under Mayor Carmelo ‘Pogi’ Lazatin Jr.’s leadership has reached P983,528,436.20 compared to last year’s P870,650,454.51, marking a 12.96% increase.
This came in the heels of the mayor’s move to intensify the monitoring of business establishments in the City, driven by the Business Permit and Licensing Division’s continuous inspection and the City Treasurer Office’s collections.
As a result, the City’s business tax collections reached P243,015,041.80 for the month of July to December 2019, while P167,656,687.36 was collected in the same period in 2018, with a 44.95% increase.
The Mayor further reiterated that his administration will keep its promise to be a business-friendly City. According to him, he will not increase business and real property taxes so as not to burden the members of the business sector.
“This is part of our aim to provide a responsive government for all the sectors of the society. We are happy that such increase in collections was recorded despite our pronouncement that my administration will not increase taxes,” he said.
According to the report of the City Treasurer’s Office, led by Juliet Quinsaat, income from total local sources rose to 15.8% from P396,985,109.13 to P459,747,909.04.
Meanwhile, for external sources, the total income for the past six months last year reached P523,780,527.16, versus P473,665,345.38 for the same period in 2018.
“My leadership will merely motivate our City Hall employees to do their mandate and help infuse the needed resources to the City’s coffers,” he added.
It can be recalled that last December 2019, the Mayor sought the approval of the City Council, led by Vice Mayor Vicky Vega-Cabigting, for the aporoval of Supplemental Budget no. 5, or the releasing of P9.1 million for the Service Recognition Incentive (SRI) of some 1,308 permanent, casual, and contractual employees, amounting to P7,000 each. They also received their P3,000 Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) bonus.