Area of Local Governance
Revenue Generation - Real Property Tax Administration

LGU Type
Province, City, and Municipality

Name of the LGU

1.	Provincial Government of Bulacan
2.	City of Malolos , Bulacan
3.	City of San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan
4.	Municipality of Balagtas, Bulacan
5.	Municipality of Baliuag, Bulacan
6.	Municipality of Bocaue, Bulacan
7.	Municipality of Bulacan, Bulacan
8.	Municipality of Calumpit, Bulacan
9.	Municipality of Doña Remedios Trinidad, Bulacan
10.	Municipality of Guiguinto, Bulacan
11.	Municipality of Marilao, Bulacan
12.	Municipality of Meycauayan, Bulacan
13.	Municipality of Norzagaray, Bulacan
14.	Municipality of Obando, Bulacan
15.	Municipality of Pandi, Bulacan
16.	Municipality of Paombong, Bulacan
17.	Municipality of Plaridel, Bulacan
18.	Municipality of Pulilan, Bulacan
19.	Municipality of San Ildefonso, Bulacan
20.	Municipality of San Rafael, Bulacan
21.	Municipality of Sta. Maria, Bulacan

Service
Revenue Generation through Real Property Tax Administration:
    1. Real Property Tax Appraisal and Assessment
    2. Real Property Tax Collection

Brief description of the service
The Administration of Real Property Taxes involves Appraisal and Assessment (by the Assessor) and Collection (by the Treasurer). Appraisal is based on physical characteristics of the property (such as area of land, or number of floors for a building), the application of the Schedule of Fair Market Values, and the imposition of Assessment Levels and Tax Rates.

Provinces, Cities, and Municipalities administer real property taxes. Municipalities share their collection with the Province.

Transparency is important in the administration of real property taxes – the taxpayers need to be able to see that the rates are fairly and correctly applied. The number of minutes that it takes for a taxpayer to transact business with the Local Government affects customer satisfaction (if they have to pay the government, at least they shouldn't wait for hours to do so).

Accuracy in computations is another important performance measure for this service. Real Property Tax Administration also requires efficient records management – organization in the filing of records, ease of retrieval and filing of records.

The amount of taxes collected from real properties is considered by many to be the most important performance measure.

eGovernance or ICT or PITO application
Real Property TaxInformation System (RPTIS)

Brief description of the eGovernance Project
In 1998, newly-elected Provincial Governor Josefina Mendoza-Dela Cruz faced the need to raise local revenues to cover the cost of economic development and improvement of social services. The situation was made more difficult with a 10% cut on the province's share of the Internal Revenue Allotment. Resolved to accomplish the vision of Bulacan being a “ province that is self-reliant …”, the Governor introduced computerization to improve the collection of Real Property Taxes, which is the biggest local revenue source.

Political will was essential to the implementation of the project. The Governor secured the support of the Municipal and City Mayors, as well as the support of their Assessors and Treasurers. These leaders put their best feet forward to IT investments, and to embrace its use.

The organizations that worked to design, develop, and deploy the RPTIS also contributed to the success of the project. Bulacan is unique among all Local Governments in the Philippines in that its Provincial Assessor works within the organization of the Provincial Treasurer. This office, called the Provincial Assessment and Treasury Office (PATO), facilitated the coordination of the Provincial Information Technology Office (PITO) with the Municipal Treasurers and Assessors in the design and deployment of the RPTIS.

The PITO provided IT expertise, and addressed the technology concerns of the project. This included systems development, database buildup, and establishing the infrastructure to make the system run.

The Bulacan RPTIS consists of two (2) modules: (1) The Assessment Operation, and (2) The Billing and Collection. The system allows Assessors and Treasurers to provide an updated, accurate assessment roll of real property units in the province, and to generate assessment notices and list of past due accounts on a timely manner. The design of the system specifies centralized data storage (in the Capitol) but decentralized processing of the real property assessment and collection system (in the Municipalities and Cities), thus, allowing the real property tax payments to be made anywhere in the province.

Primarily, the Offices of City or Municipal Assessors and Treasurers are the service providers. The use of RPTIS in each city or municipality is guided by the Provincial Assessment and Treasury Office (PATO) through orientations and user trainings. Technical development, installation, maintenance, enhancements RPTIS is actively used in the daily transactions where real property appraisal, assessment, billing and collection are concerned.

While RPTIS was intended to be a local revenue generation tool, it also served to introduce Information Systems to local government employees. Users of the system have come to realize the comfort of computer technology over the manual practice, and now ant everything else to be computer-generated!

Today 83% of the Local Government Units in the Province (2 component cities and 18 municipalities) have the RPTIS, and the Province is still finding ways to help the remaining 17% to acquire the needed resources.

Both the service providers (which are the LGUs) and their clients (the real property owners) are now experiencing the benefits of RPTIS. These benefits include the capacity to pay anywhere in the Province, speedy transactions, accurate data, and an improved record management system.

One major success of the province which it shares with its pilot municipality, the Municipality of Guiguinto , is reaping the fruit of its brave pioneering investment in Information Technology. In 2001, using their manual system, the Municipality collected Php 26.3 M. After it implemented the RPTIS, in 2002 Guiguinto collected Php 40.8 Million, an increase of Php 14.5 Million!

To mention a few improvements:
1) Processing of simple Real Property Unit (RPU)
Before: Done in 30 minutes (average)
After: Done in 5 seconds! (average)
A 30-minute savings and improvement!

2) General Revision
Before: All documents are reviewed again for re-assessment
After: Just input new schedule of base unit value, then every property information will be automatically updated
Can reduce 100% of manpower doing revised FAAS
(Field Appraisal and Assessment Sheets)
Savings of an average of 10 personnel each municipality

3) Production capacity to produce documents to support decision making
Before: Prepared in 1 month
After: Capable of support assessment and appraisal.
         Tax Bills and notices of delinquencies for the whole municipality can be mass produced automatically in one day !
A 1-month savings and improvement!

Commercial ICT Service providers
ICT solutions are developed and maintainted in-house.

For software technology, specifically front end and back end supports:

Sybase Solutions Corporation
Suite 2510 Prestige Tower
Emerald Ave., Ortigas Center
Pasig City 1500, Philippines

For network and communications solutions:

Cisco Systems, Inc.
Philippines Branch Office
24/F, Citibank Tower
Citibank Plaza , 8741 Paseo De Roxas
Makati City 1200, Philippines

Computer Network Systems Corp.
Suite 707 The Taipan Place
Emerald Avenue, Ortigas Center
Pasig City 1605, Philippines

Avaya Philippines, Inc.
17/F, Tower 2
The Enterprise Center
6766 Ayala Avenue corner Paseo de Roxas
1226 Makati City , Philippines

Partners
Provincial Government of Bulacan
      Provincial Assessment and Treasury Office
      Provincial Information Technology Office

The 2 cities of the Province of Bulacan
      Malolos City and San Jose Del Monte City

The 18 municipalities of the Province of Bulacan:
Balagtas, Baliuag, Bocaue, Calumpit, Doña Remedios Trinidad , Guiguinto, Marilao, Meycauayan, Norzagaray, Obando, Pandi, Paombong, Plaridel, Pulilan, San Ildefonso, San Rafael , and Sta. Maria