LOCAL vegetable growers have expressed frustration over the continuous imposition of the so-called road tax on their produce by local government units (LGUs) despite an existing order from the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) for them to refrain from collecting such tax.

Lyndon Tan, president of the Region IV Vegetable Council, said LGUs continue to collect the tax despite their resistance to it. Even local poultry growers and other farm producers who need to transport their products have also complained of the road tax and have been lobbying for its repeal two years ago.

“LGUs continue to collect from us even as the President has asked the DILG to issue an order to desist from collecting road tax,” Tan told reporters in a briefing Tuesday.

Tan said LGUs usually collect anywhere from P500 to P1,000 from veggie growers and other farm producers annually.

LGUs then issue stickers to those who have paid taxes. He said LGUs harass them in connivance with the Land Transportaton Office (LTO).

The LTO allegedly allows local governments to use their tickets which they issue to truckers who do not carry stickers issued by their locale.

“The LGUs should not be collecting the road tax since most of the time we use national roads owned by the national government,” said Tan.

Agriculture Undersecretary Salvador Salacup, for his part, admitted that LGUs are allowed by law to raise revenues.

Salacup said the Department of Agriculture (DA) had already requested the DILG to facilitate the timely delivery of local produce to cities.

Unfortunately, Salacup admitted that the best the DA can do is to “encourage” the DILG and the LGUs to press for the repeal of the road tax.

He said Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap is set to make a new appeal to Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno to enforce Memorandum Circular 2006-70 issued on June 26, 2006.

The DILG ordered that pursuant to Section 133(e) of the Local Government Code, all local chief executives should refrain from enforcing any existing ordinance authorizing the levy of fees and taxes on interprovince transport of goods, regulatory fees from passengers in local ports and other additional taxes, fees or charges in any form upon transporting goods and passengers.

The DILG also asked LGUs to immediately repeal ordinances imposing fees and taxes.

LOCAL vegetable growers have expressed frustration over the continuous imposition of the so-called road tax on their produce by local government units (LGUs) despite an existing order from the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) for them to refrain from collecting such tax.

THE volume of goods produced by the local manufacturing sector continued its slide in May as it posted a 7.1-percent decline on a yearly basis, according to the latest Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI) released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) Tuesday.

CONSIDERING that the Renewable Energy Bill has yet to be passed by Congress and the threat of global warming persists, World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-Philippines on Tuesday expressed concern over President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) not having at least a hint of prioritizing the bill.

BUREAU of Internal Revenue (BIR) chief Lilian B. Hefti has rewarded personnel with promotions and reassigned some of them to places considered more challenging in a make-or-break effort to arrest the agency’s P47.7-billion collection shortfall in the first half.

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