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The ordinance required them to submit to the office of the mayor every year within the first 20 days of Janaury a written declaration under oath stating whether or not their property is being leased or rented to other persons or corporations. Together with the sworn declaration, they were supposed to also submit a copy of the lease contract with a copy furnished to the barangay office where the property is located. First and second time violators are to be penalized with a fine of P5,000 for every violation; third time violators may be imprisoned for 15 days or fined as the court, in its discretion, may determine. The ordinance did not find it necessary to impose a penalty for fourth time violators. Obviously, the fear of the Lord, if not of Jojo Binay, ensures that violators will not go beyond tempting the fates a third time. The taxpayer’s resistance in paying the lessor’s tax should prompt our revenue authorities, both local and national (it is said that Rene Banez is eagerly awaiting the list of lessors to be compiled by Binay so that he too could go after those not paying the relevant national taxes on rental income), to re-examine the premises of a lessors tax and determine whether it is now time, long after land holding and renting has ceased to become a primary source of public revenue, to change the treatment of income from leases. I submit that there are lessors and lessors and reality dictates that some be treated differently from others. I do not think that the problem of non-payment of the taxes on rentals is with big time corporate realty companies. Non-compliance, says my gut feel, is with those who are small time renters, people who were able to scrape some lifetime savings from the rapidly diminishing value of their salaries, and, with the little saved, decided to buy a small lot which was then looked upon as source of rental income on which to live in their twilight years. These people do not pay the lessors’ tax because, in their heart of hearts, they feel that the combined tax take of the government, local and national, is just too much for them to bear. I submit that some thinking should be given to aligning the tax treatment, at the national and local level, of their rental income to the same thinking that made them go into small time leasing. For most owners of this category, their small apartments represent savings, in much the same way that the money they had saved with the banks is savings. They are not really in the rental business in exactly the same way that bank depositors are not in the lending business. They are where they are because for them, rentals, like interest on bank deposits, are regular, dependable, and reasonable fruits of the little that they own. Consequently, there is reason to treat rental income in the same way that interest from bank deposits are treated. Subject them to a final income tax of 20 percent at the national level and be done with it. Spare them the hassle of big time leasing (i.e. keeping records, charging depreciation, etc) because they are not big time in the first place. Exempt them from the municipal lessor’s tax and free them from the tedium of complying with Ordinance No. 2001-108 and its kind. There is no need to force them to be dishonest simply because there are fat cows and porky pigs who refuse to cheer when Jojo passes by.
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