• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Negros Occidental will have an 18 percent increase in its National Tax Allotment (NTA), which is equivalent to more than P900 million, in 2025, Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said on Tuesday (July 2).
In 2023, Negros Occidental lost more than P700 million of its NTA due to reduced tax collection in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country.
With the increase, Lacson said that they will continue implementing the funded programs such as the farm-to-market roads and possibly restore the P300,000 financial assistance to each barangay.
The NTA automatically appropriates the share of local government units (LGUs), aggregately corresponding to 40 percent of the national taxes based on the collection of the third fiscal year preceding the current fiscal year.
Lacson said that the proposed budget of the provincial government in 2025 will be more than P5 billion.
Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman earlier said that the NTA for LGUs next year will be up by 18.7 percent to P1.03 trillion from this year’s level of P871.38 billion.
LGUs will get a higher share as the NTA is based on the 2022 revenue collection, which improved as the economy significantly bounced back from a two-year slump at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. | GB
