BACOLOD City – The Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) is urging Central Negros Electric Cooperative (CENECO) to explain the “local tax” of P0.2018 per kilo-watt-hour(kwh) imposed on member-owner-consumers starting in the January 2022 billing.
In a resolution, the SP said this “local tax” is in the form of “percentage tax” computed based on the member-owner-consumers’ per kwh power consumption.
The “percentage tax” is imposed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and can be passed on to member-owner-consumers like the value-added tax (VAT), but not the “local tax”, according to the SP.
Resolution author Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr. said the imposition of the local tax has never been experienced by CENECO member-owner-consumers in the past.
Such imposition, he added, did not undergo any official consultation or notice from CENECO.
CENECO officer-in-charge Jose Taniongon said, “For the billing month of January 2022, CENECO implemented the recovery of Real Property Taxes (RPT) paid for the year 2021 in the total amount of P12.5 million.
“This one-time collection of P0.2018/kWh is a valid pass-through charge per Section 4.6 of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Resolution No. 20, Series of 2009 which provides that ‘Current RPTs that are paid by the electric cooperatives (ECs) are deemed part of their operating costs and allowed by ERC for recovery from all member-consumers.’”
CENECO is authorized under the said resolution to collect the determined RPT from its member-consumer-owners as a separate line item in the bill, Taniongon explained./PN
