This will be a great relief to the city.
“The Manila City Hall is scheduled to start paying off its PHP500-million tax debt with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) before the end of the month,” reports June Ramirez in Manila Buleltin.
Mayor Joseph Estrada claimed that “the delinquent account was part of the more than PHP3-billion indebtedness that his administration inherited from its predecessor, which also included unpaid water and electric bills.”
The report noted: “Revenue officials said the back taxes were incurred in 2007 covering unremitted withholding tax due from the salaries of city personnel and value-added tax from the rental earnings of the local government.”
Under its agreement with the BIR, the city’s tax debts “will be paid in installment with the first remittance due before the end of the month.”
Screengrab from Mayor Joseph Estrada’s Twitter page
