Question & AnswerQ&A (Commonwealth Act No. 472)
Under Commonwealth Act No. 472, a municipal council or municipal district council has the authority to impose municipal license taxes on persons engaged in any occupation or business, or exercising privileges in the municipality or municipal district by requiring them to secure licenses at rates fixed by the municipal council.
Municipal councils and municipal district councils are prohibited from imposing cedula tax, documentary stamp tax, taxes on newspapers and certain publications, taxes on telephone/telegraph operations, taxes on transportation businesses, taxes on certain wholesale and manufacturing businesses, taxes on professions like lawyers and doctors, specific taxes on banks and insurance companies, taxes on estates and income, fees for weighing and measuring devices, among others specified in Section 3.
The municipal license tax for proprietors of cockpits is two hundred pesos, and for each cockfight (soltada), the tax is twenty-five centavos.
Yes, approval of the Secretary of Finance must be secured when municipal license taxes exceed rates fixed by the National Government for the same businesses (except for hotels, restaurants, cafes, refreshment parlors, race tracks, retail dealers in liquors, and livery stables and garages), when fixed license taxes exceed fifty pesos per annum for certain businesses, or when increases exceed fifty percent.
Hawkers, peddlers, hucksters, piano tuners, piano repairers who do not operate from fixed shops, and proprietors of circuses with licenses secured in one municipality are not required to take out licenses in other municipalities through which they travel for business, unless their license renewal term has expired.
Municipal councils can levy just and uniform taxes other than percentage taxes and taxes on specified articles for public local purposes and for school purposes, including teachers' salaries.
The amounts stated for the municipal license taxes in Section 2 are for the whole year unless otherwise specified.
Sections 5 repeals Acts Numbered Thirty-four hundred and twenty-two, thirty-seven hundred, thirty-seven hundred and ninety, thirty-eight hundred and thirty-three, and Four thousand and nineteen.
No, municipal councils are prohibited from imposing taxes on income of any kind or on estates, inheritances, gifts, legacies, and other acquisitions mortis causa under Section 3.
The Act takes effect upon its approval, which was on June 16, 1939.