SEC. 49. (a) The real estate of the municipality shall be valued and assessed for taxation by a board, to consist of the president, the municipal treasurer, and a specially authorized deputy of the provincial treasurer, which board shall he known as the municipal board of assessors. The president of the municipality shall be president of the board of assessors, and the municipal secretary shall be its secretary. The place of meeting of the board, except when viewing land to be valued, shall be the office of the municipal secretary.
(b) All questions presented to the board for its determination shall be decided by a majority vote.
SEC. 50. (a) Before entering upon their duties and the organization of the board, the members shall take and subscribe an oath before the municipal secretary, who is hereby given authority to take oaths for this purpose, in the following words:
"I,................................, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will appraise all the real property subject to taxation in the municipality of ............................ so far as required by law at its true value in money, and will set the same in the tax list of said municipality at its true value in money, and will faithfully discharge all the duties imposed upon me by law. So help me God. (Last four words to be omitted in case of affirmation.) (Signature of assessor.)
"Sworn and subscribed to before me this ........ day of ........, 19......
"(Signature of municipal secretary.)"
(b) Such oath, when subscribed, shall he filed with the municipal secretary, who shall record the entire oath and certificate upon the records of the board.
SEC. 51. It shall be the duty of every owner of real estate in the municipality to prepare, or cause to he prepared, a statement of the amount of land and improvements thereon which he owns within the municipality, and a description sufficient in detail to enable the board of assessors to identify the same on examination. He shall subscribe the statement and verify the same on oath before the municipal secretary, who is hereby authorized to administer such oath. The statement shall be filed with the secretary of the board of assessors within two weeks after the organization of the board.
SEC. 52. On the first day of September, nineteen hundred and one, the board of assessors shall meet, take the oath of office and organize, and shall proceed to make a list of all the taxable real estate in the municipality by barrios. The names of the owners in each barrio shall be arranged alphabetically, with a brief description, opposite to their names of the property owned by them. In making this list the board of assessors shall take into consideration the sworn statements by the owners of the property in the municipality, hereinbefore required to be filed, but shall not be prevented; thereby from considering other evidence on the subject. For the purpose of completing this list, the board is authorized to summon witnesses, administer oaths to them, and subject them to examination concerning the ownership and amount of real estate in each barrio. It shall be the duty of the board, so far as is necessary, to examine the records of the office of the provincial registrar showing the ownership of real estate in the municipality.
SEC. 53. If the board of assessors shall find parcels of land within the municipality subject to taxation, the owner or owners of which can not be discovered after a proper investigation, it shall be the duty of the board to list the same for taxation, charging the taxes as against an unknown owner and describing, with sufficient accuracy, the property thus listed.
SEC. 54. (a) After having completed the list, the board shall proceed to assess the value of each separate parcel of real estate, and the improvements thereon, if any, at their true value in money; and, where it shall appear that there are separate owners of the land and of the improvements, a separate assessment of the property of each shall be made.
(b) The values so fixed shall he placed upon the tax list opposite the names of the owners and the descriptions of the property taxed.
SEC. 55. If it shall be discovered by the board or brought to their attention, or to the attention of any member thereof, that any taxable real estate in the municipality has escaped listing, it shall be the duty of the board at once to list and value the same and charge against the owner thereof the taxes due for the current year and for all other years since the original assessment under this chapter was made by the board, and the taxes thus assessed shall be legal and collectible by all the remedies herein provided, and penalties and interest shall be added to the back taxes as if the same had been assessed at the time when they should have been assessed.
SEC. 56. The board of assessors shall complete their listing and valuation of real property situated within the municipality on or before January thirty-first, nineteen hundred and two, and, when completed, shall authenticate the same by signing the following certificate at the foot of the list:
"We hereby certify that the foregoing list contains a true statement of the aggregate amount of the taxable real estate belonging to each person named in the list, according to the best of our knowledge and belief."
SEC. 57. When the list shall be completed in accordance with the foregoing section, it shall be filed in the office of the secretary of the board and the board of assessors shall, by notice posted at the main entrance of the municipal building and by a notice posted in a public and conspicuous place in each barrio of the municipality, inform the public that the list has been completed and is on file in the office of the secretary of the board and may be examined by any person interested therein, and that, upon a day, at least ten days after the posting of said notice, the board will be in session for the purpose of hearing complaints as to the accuracy of the listing of the property and a proper valuation thereof. After such notices have been posted the secretary shall certify to the fact of posting upon the records, which shall be deemed prima facie evidence thereof. At the day fixed in the posted notice, the board shall meet and hear all complaints then or theretofore filed by persons against whom taxes have been assessed as owners of real estate, and shall make and enter the decision on its minutes; and if the board shall determine that injustice has been done or errors have been committed, it shall have authority to amend the list in accordance with its findings.
SEC. 58. In case any complainant before the board of assessors shall feel aggrieved by its decision, he may, within ten days after the entry of the decision upon the minutes, appeal to a board of tax appeals hereinafter provided for. He shall perfect his appeal by filing a written notice of the same with the board of assessors, and it shall be the duty of the secretary of said board forthwith to transmit the appeal to the board of tax appeals, with all written evidence in the possession of the board relating to said assessment and valuation.
SEC. 59 (a) The provincial board shall constitute the board of tax appeals.
(b) The provincial governor shall be the chairman of this board and the provincial secretary shall be the secretary and shall keep the records of its proceedings.
SEC. 60 (a) Before organizing as such, the members of the board of tax appeals shall take the following oath before a justice of the peace in and for the province:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will well and truly hear and determine all matters and issues between tax payers and the municipal board of assessors submitted for my decision, so help me God. (In case of affirmation, the last four words shall be stricken out.)
"(Signature of member of the board.)
"Subscribed and sworn to before me, this ............ day of ............ 190........
"(Signature of justice of the peace.)"
(b) The oath of each member shall be recorded by the secretary of the board in the minutes of its proceedings and filed in the office of the provincial secretary.
SEC. 61. The board of tax appeals shall hear all appeals duly transmitted to them, and shall decide the same within fifteen days after the expiration of the time limited for the filing of appeals. They shall have authority to cause to be amended the listing and valuation of the property in respect to which the complaint is made, by order signed by the board, or a majority thereof, and transmitted to the municipal board of assessors, which shall amend the tax list in conformity with said order.
SEC. 62. There shall be exempted from taxation burying grounds, churches and their adjacent parsonages or conventos, and lands and buildings used exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific or educational purposes, and not for private profit; but such exemption shall not extend to lands or buildings held for investment, though the income therefrom be devoted to religious, charitable, scientific, or educational purposes.
SEC. 63. The board of assessors shall meet, after ten days notice posted at the main entrance of the municipal building and in a public and conspicuous place in each barrio, for three days in the month of December in each year, to add to the list of real property of the municipality the value of the improvements placed upon such property during the year preceding, and to reduce the assessment against any taxpayer whose improvements, already assessed, have been destroyed during the preceding year, and for the addition to the list of any property which is taxable and which has theretofore escaped taxation.
SEC. 64. The assessment first made after the organization of the town, as amended from time to time, shall continue in force for the period of five years, unless an earlier provision is made by law for another general assessment.
SEC. 65. (a) All licenses and privilege taxes shall be paid before the licensee or taxpayer shall begin the business or enjoyment of the privilege for which the license or tax is imposed by the ordinance of the council.
(b) All licenses and privilege taxes shall terminate on the thirty-first of May of each year, and anyone beginning a business or exercising a privilege upon which a tax is levied by the council after the thirty-first of May shall he required, before beginning such business or exercising such privilege, to pay the license or tax for the part of the year which remains, to and including the thirty-first of May following.
(c) An addition to the tax or license, in the nature of a penalty amounting to twenty per centum of the original tax or license, to be collected and accounted for by the provincial treasurer in the same manner as the original tax or license, shall be imposed for a failure to pay tax or license when due.
SEC. 66. It shall be the duty of the provincial treasurer to keep a record, open to public inspection, of the names of all persons paying licenses or privilege taxes, arranged alphabetically.
SEC. 67. Within ten days after the passage of the ordinance by the council for the payment of licenses or privilege taxes, the president and municipal treasurer shall prepare a list of the names of the persons whose business, if continued, would render them liable to the license or tax, and they shall transmit such list at once to the provincial treasurer, to enable him more readily to detect persons failing to pay the licenses and privilege taxes for which they shall have become liable.
SEC. 68. The council shall provide that any person conducting a business or enjoying a privilege without paying the tax required by its ordinances shall be punished by fine and imprisonment, after trial and conviction before the president, as in other cases under the limitations prescribed in subsection of section thirty-nine.
Source: Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines — Philippine laws are public documents (works of the government).
