BAGUIO CITY – The City Council, during last Monday’s regular session, urged the City Assessors’ office and the Tuba Municipal Assessor’s office to craft the appropriate process that will ensure that properties within their respective areas of jurisdiction will be rightfully declared and prevent the alleged double declaration of properties in both the city and municipality.
The decision was reached by local legislators after confirming from representatives of the city assessor’s office and the Tuba Municipal Assessor’s office that there are some properties declared in the city which are also declared in Tuba and vice versa.
Earlier, the council invited Tuba municipal assessor Engr. Noel G. Tomin to shed light on city properties that are tax declared in the municipality and requested that the same submit the list of properties and lands that are registered in the municipality instead of being registered in the city.
Tomin informed local legislators that some 40 to 50 properties earlier declared in Tuba were already transferred to the city over the past several months after the same had been found to be within the city’s jurisdiction.
He added that under the guidelines, a property owner who wants his or her property to be registered in the city because the same is located in Baguio should request the Tuba municipal assessors office for the issuance of a certificate of no objection for its being tax declared in the city.
After the issuance of the certificate of no objection, the property owner will then seek the issuance of the certificate of no adverse claims from the Benguet Provincial Assessors office before submitting the said documents to the city assessors office for the issuance of the required tax declaration in the city.
The Tuba municipal assessor, who was accompanied by Councilor Rebecca Apil and municipal legal officer George Pucay, assured local legislators that his office will be providing the list of properties that are supposed to be registered in the city but had been tax declared in the municipality.
According to him, the Tuba municipal assessors office plots the properties being tax declared prior to the issuance of tax declarations that is why when it will be discovered that the property being registered is within the jurisdiction of the city, the owner is advised to register the same with the city assessors office to avoid the prevalence of the overlapping tax declarations that were issued to the said properties.
He agreed with the contention of some city officials that one of the reasons why owners prefer to register their properties for the issuance of tax declarations is because of the much lower real property taxes that are being charged in the municipality.
However, he claimed that the Tuba municipal assessors office will not hesitate to refer the owner to the city assessor’s office where the same will transact the issuance of the required tax declaration when the property being declared is within the city’s jurisdiction. Because one of the major activities of their office is to cleanse the existing records of tax declarations to avoid the prevalence of overlapping declarations on city and municipal properties.
By Dexter A. See