BAGUIO CITY – The City Treasury Office said that more than fifty businesses within the John Hay Special Economic Zone (JHSEZ) will now be processing their business permits with the city government that would greatly boost the city’s tax collection efforts.
Assistant City Treasurer Fernando Radma, Jr. said that no less than City Treasurer Alex Cabarrubias and representatives from the City Legal Office met with their counterparts from the John Hay Management Corporation (JHMC) to discuss ways forward in ensuring the immediate release of the business permits of the locators.
He said that the number of locators was determined by the city treasury office following the inventory conducted by the Permits and Licensing Division of the City mayor’s Office and their office after the Supreme Court (SC) upheld the power of the city government to mandate businesses operating within its jurisdiction to secure their permits from the city.
For quite some time, JHSEZ locators that are not registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) had not been securing their business permits from the city government because of their alleged exemption from the city’s jurisdiction being within an economic zone.
However, Radma claimed that the city government only established the number of businesses that are PEZA-registered but not the actual number of businesses, including those that are not PEZA-registered, that had been operating in the JHSEZ because of the restrictions previously imposed by the JHMC.
According to him, the city government cannot yet project the taxes that imposed and generated from these businesses that will start securing their permits from the city because the city treasury office still has to establish the data required from the said businesses where it can base its computation of the tax payments due to the city, including possible penalties and surcharges, depending on the ongoing negotiations on how to proceed with the said matter.
In 2009, the city government invoked its right to mandate businesses that are not PEZA-registered operating in the JHSEZ to secure the necessary business permits from the city but this was contested by the JHMC until the case reached the High Court. By Dexter A. See
