THE CITY Business Bureau reminded owners to secure and prepare the necessary documents to renew their permits and avoid transactional delays.
The city is in the middle of the month-long business permit renewal, which will end on Jan. 31.
Business Bureau head Maribel Paguican said the application process typically takes a day and authorized applicants can receive their respective permits after completing the steps and paying the necessary fees.
“Whenever the application is already completed, we can issue and give their permit following the timeline which is one day,” she said.
Only about 5,000 business owners were able to complete transactions and secure permits, representing 25% of the 21,203, as of Jan. 10.
Paguican said the most common cause of delay is when the applicant fails to secure the building permits first. Businesses undergoing improvement and renovation should have occupancy permits, which is a requirement for the business permit application.
Meanwhile, Paguican said more taxpayers prefer the traditional face-to-face transactions than registering their businesses online.
For example, only 473 of the 21,203 processed applications were done online while the rest were done manually.
“Gamay lang gihapon nag involved sa atong online, so we cannot oblige them to really embrace the online service that we offer because we don’t have any executive order mandating them to go online,” Paguican said during the iSpeak forum on Jan. 11.
The city government announced in 2020 that all payment transactions, including taxes and renewals, can be done online even before the institutionalization of the Republic Act 11976 or the Ease of Paying Taxes Act (EOPTA) signed by President Ferdinand Marcos on Jan.5, requiring digital transactions for taxpayers’ convenience.
Despite the influx of applications, Paguican reported that they were still short of last year’s performance which was around 21,400.
The bureau head attributed the figure to the date that the renewal started, Jan. 2, which fell on the post-New Year festivity celebration, where most business owners hail from their provinces to spend the holidays.
Davaoeños are urged to renew their business permits before the deadline to avoid sanctions and fines. The city has assigned 10 different locations in various districts to cater to business owners.
