AMID the proposal to revise the fair market value of properties in Quezon City, Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte on Wednesday asked the city council to review an ordinance that imposes a .05-percent socialized housing tax on property owners.
Belmonte, the council’s presiding officer, is batting for a thorough review of Ordinance No. SP-2095 of 2011 to determine if it is still reasonable to continue its implementation on top of the proposed market value adjustment in the land market values.
It has been a few years since we started imposing it to the property owners to raise funds for our socialized housing programs. Is it still prudent to continue implementing it? Did we not achieve our goal of collecting enough funds yet?” she asked.
The ordinance’s review would cushion the impact of the tax increase of property values, she said, and called on the 38-member city council to review the Socialized Housing Tax Ordinance.
Belmonte said she was able to talk to a lot of property owners who wanted the measure repealed.
“This is one of the mitigating measures we are looking into. Maybe, it would be a big help to the property owners if we’ll review the SHT ordinance first before we consider implementing the proposed revision of our fair market value,” she said.
The vice mayor said she, too, is eager to know if the socialized housing tax collections had been property utilized.
She reacted to reports from the public consultations in different barangays for the proposed adjustment in the fair market values that those who paid the SHT were never given a report on how the money was spent.
“Did all the funds go to where they were supposed to be?” Belmonte said, echoing the questions of taxpayers during the consultations.
Under the Socialized Housing Tax Ordinance, a property owner who owns a parcel of land that has an assessed value of P100,001 or greater is charged an additional 0.5 percent of the assessed value as “housing tax” on top of the annual real-estate property payment.
Only 26 percent of property owners in the city were impacted by the ordinance, of which half were owners of residential lots, Belmonte said.
In February 2014, the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order stopping the socialized housing tax.
The city government was able to generate taxes of P147.44 million in 2012 and P193.51 million in 2013 from the ordinance.
In 2015, the high court ruled the socialized housing tax was valid and legal, and that it was consistent with Section 43 of Republic Act 7279 or the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992.