{"id":6216,"date":"2020-05-06T09:01:17","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T09:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=6216"},"modified":"2026-04-24T05:30:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:30:38","slug":"pogo-philippines-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/pogo-philippines-tax","title":{"rendered":"POGOs not entitled to tax breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) will not qualify for any tax incentives related to the Covid-19 outbreak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Philippines.- Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) will not qualify for any tax incentives despite the government classifying them as business process outsourcing (BPO) companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Officials from the Department of Finance, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and <strong><em>PAGCOR<\/em><\/strong> all announced in separate messages on Tuesday that POGOs would not receive any preferential tax treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Philippines Finance Minister, Carlos Dominguez III, said: &#8220;Classification [as BPOs] does not exempt [them from taxes].<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;There must be [an] express provision [in the] law [that would grant] incentives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;These service providers cannot likewise avail [themselves] of the tax privileges of PEZA (Philippine Economic Zone Authority), because they are not PEZA-registered entities.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this week, it was <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/pogos-philippines-partially-reopen\">announced that POGOs were allowed to partially reopen<\/a><\/em><\/strong> after an extended period of restrictions were put in place due to the Coronavirus pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) will not qualify for any tax incentives related to the Covid-19 outbreak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) have been explicitly denied tax incentives related to the Covid-19 pandemic, despite their classification as Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) entities. This decision, affirmed by the Department of Finance, BIR, and PAGCOR, clarifies that BPO classification does not automatically confer tax exemptions without specific legal provisions or PEZA registration. The ruling impacts POGOs recently permitted to partially resume operations.","focusai_entities":"Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), Department of Finance, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), PAGCOR, Carlos Dominguez III, PEZA (Philippine Economic Zone Authority)","focusai_location":"Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.95), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"POGO NGR Impact?","query":"What is the projected impact of this denial of tax incentives on the net gaming revenue (NGR) margins and overall profitability of POGO operators in the Philippines?"},{"label":"POGO FDI Outlook?","query":"How might this regulatory stance on tax incentives influence future foreign direct investment (FDI) and the long-term operational viability of the POGO sector in the Philippines?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,161,158,16333],"tags":[405,128,15789],"class_list":["post-6216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-daily-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-pagcor","tag-philippines","tag-pogos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6216","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=6216"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777010494,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6216\/revisions\/777010494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}