How much tax do you pay each year? Because tax brackets and individual circumstances differ, the actual amount varies from one person to another but it is estimated to be around 20% to as high as over 30% of your salary!
Most people actually pay more than Php1,000 in taxes per month – and that easily translates to at least Php12,000 a year! Now, how would you feel if a bank pays less taxes than you – say, only Php2,000 per year? Wouldn’t that be unfair to ordinary workers who work hard to earn money but also diligently pay their taxes because they don’t really have a choice as such are taken directly from their salaries?
Well, that’s exactly what Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña wants a BDO Unibank, Inc. to explain because he revealed that according to the City Treasurer’s records, the BDO-Magallanes St. branch only pays Php2,000 in taxes per year after declaring that their gross sales only amounted to Php400,000.
Osmeña fumed in a statement, “They (bank officials) declared that their gross revenues for the year are P400,000. On P33,000 a month, that’s not even enough to pay the manager.”
What irked Osmeña more is that the city hall’s own janitor pays about Php5,000 in taxes per year. He asked in a press statement, “Who is richer? The city hall janitor or BDO. Isip… Isip.”
The feisty mayor also refused to believe that the BDO branch only had Php400,000 when it was located in a strategic location. Even stall owners at the Carbon Public Market declared a gross revenue of more than P1 million – how could a bank earn less than those vendors?
With this, Osmeña filed a case against the bank before the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor, hoping that the bank will pay proper taxes to ensure that there’s money in the city’s coffers to fund local projects, including construction of the Cebu City Medical Center.