{"id":10236,"date":"2020-09-22T22:03:37","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T22:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=10236"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:36:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:36:58","slug":"mariana-delegations-owe-us7m-in-casino-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/mariana-delegations-owe-us7m-in-casino-tax","title":{"rendered":"Mariana delegations owe US$7m in casino tax"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The island of Rota is requesting the same flexibility on funds paid by IPI as other islands have had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Northern Mariana Islands.-\u00a0Three delegations from the\u00a0Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) owe the country\u2019s general fund over US$7.16 million in taxes paid by casino operators.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over a six-year period from 2014 to 2019, Imperial Pacific International (IPI) paid the CNMI a total of US$120 million in annual casino license fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Finance says the delegations of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, now owe US$7.16 million to the islands’ general fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers were revealed to the Saipan Tribune by Rota senator Paul A. Manglona. He says that it appears that in the fifth year of the period, the\u00a0annual license fee funding \u2013 US$11 million from Saipan and US$2 million each for Rota and Tinian \u2013 was never allotted to the respective delegations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the senator\u2019s calculations, Rota owes\u00a0US$274,032 to the general fund, Tinian US$2.08m and Saipan US$4.8m. He is requesting that the delegation receives the same flexibility to allocate funds to medical necessities amid the Covid-19 pandemic as other delegations had regarding funds paid by the casino operator.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July, Manglona led a Senate investigation<\/a><\/em><\/strong> over the distribution of the funds paid by IPI, which is obligated to pay a US$15 million annual fee for its casino licence. He insists the finance secretary has yet to remit Rota\u2019s share of the casino licence fees from prior years.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The island of Rota is requesting the same flexibility on funds paid by IPI as other islands have had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) faces a US$7.16 million shortfall in its general fund, attributed to unallotted casino license fees paid by Imperial Pacific International (IPI) from 2014-2019. This financial discrepancy impacts the delegations of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, with Rota specifically seeking allocation flexibility for medical necessities, mirroring prior arrangements. This situation underscores critical governance and revenue distribution challenges within the jurisdiction's gaming vertical.","focusai_entities":"Imperial Pacific International, Paul A. Manglona, Department of Finance","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, Rota, Saipan, Tinian","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.8), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IPI License Fee Impact","query":"What are the potential long-term implications for Imperial Pacific International's operational license and financial standing given the ongoing dispute over unallotted fees and the jurisdiction's revenue management?"},{"label":"CNMI Governance Review","query":"What specific governance framework deficiencies within the CNMI Department of Finance led to the misallocation of casino license fees, and what corrective actions are being implemented to prevent future discrepancies?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,154],"tags":[22674,4024,2895],"class_list":["post-10236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legislation-news","tag-ipi","tag-saipan","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10248,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10236\/revisions\/10248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}