DAVAO CITY – Taxation can be a problematic word, especially during an election season, but among watershed advocates in Davao City, taxes, or more specifically Green Taxes are just being par for the course when one lives in a city whose mantra is “Life is Here”.
2016 could be the year of the watershed environmental tax, as the city amps up its collection from the agri-businesses operating in the Talomo-Lipadas and Panigan-Tamugan watersheds. Last year, when the envi tax was first implemented, only a handful of businesses complied, under protest. In fact, a case was filed in the courts to contest the tax implementation. Complainants argued that the local government does not have the right to impose an environmental tax since they are already paying property taxes and business permits. They contend that this is a case of double taxation, which is prohibited under the law.
But according to the watershed advocacy group Interface Development Interventions (IDIS), the environmental tax imposed by the city’s Watershed Code is within the authority and power conferred to it by the Constitution and the Local Government Code.
“A business permit is different from a tax.”, IDIS Policy Advocacy Specialist Mark Penalver pointed out. “It refers to the government’s power to regulate businesses within its territorial jurisdiction while taxation is the government’s power to tax and collect revenues to fund its operations.”
“It is also different from property taxes because while both are imposed by the same government, it is not being imposed for the same purpose. The former is for property utilization while the envi tax will only be selectively imposed on major agricultural activities which have a negative impact on the environment due to their continuous use of toxic inputs , like pesticides.”, he said.
The WMC plans to utilize the envi tax on watershed projects initiated by the barangay watershed monitoring councils. IDIS, as the civil society sector representative to the WMC, said that the envi tax should also be used to mitigate or rehabilitate the damage caused by pesticide contamination. Other possible uses of envi tax will include funding riverbank reforestation projects, watershed delineation activities, incentives for community forest volunteers and field monitoring by local multipartite watershed teams.
Davao is not alone though. In Palawan, Bohol and Camiguin, similar measures are being imposed. Domestic and foreign eco-tourists pay an environmental availment fee which goes to a fund that is used to maintain and support the city’s community-based tourism facilities. Closer to home, the Island Garden City of Samal has an environmental users fee levied on local and foreign tourists which goes towards protecting and maintaining the island’s beaches and other tourist attractions.
Elsewhere in the developed world, similar green tax measures are becoming the norm. In the United States, the common kind of state envi tax is a tax on polluting industries, which goes to a clean-up fund. Other innovative tax mechanisms include the “contaminated property tax” which is levied on the ‘contamination value’ of the property – the difference in value before and after contamination.
The presence of the tax case, notwithstanding, the city’s Watershed Management Council stands by firmly in the soundness of the watershed envi tax. While there is no definite timeline, WMC expects the court to rule on its behalf within the year. So until then, nothing is off the table. (Misael Paranial/EDGE DAVAO, Special Supplement)