Representative Robert “Ace” Barbers says Philippines law makes no distinction between local and foreign operators and that all POGOs must pay the tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Philippines.- More Philippine legislators are insisting that Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) pay the 5 per cent franchise tax even if they are not physically located within the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frankling Drilon<\/a><\/em><\/strong> and Leila De Lima<\/a><\/em><\/strong> have recently spoken out on the issue, demanding P50 billion (about US$997 million) in unpaid taxes from POGOs be directed to fund Covid-19 response programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now Surigao del Norte 2nd district Rep. Robert “Ace” Barbers has made his voice heard on the matter. For him, there\u2019s no question that all POGOs licensed by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation<\/em><\/strong> (Pagcor) \u201care clearly subject to a 5 per cent franchise tax.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pagcor has granted about 60 licences to gaming operators, although only ten of them are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as Philippines-based. The other 50 POGOs claim the 5 per cent franchise tax does not apply to them because they are based elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barbers, chairman of the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs, said: \u201cAll these Pagcor-licensed POGOs, including the ten that are registered with the SEC, are either domestic or foreign corporations registered to do business in the Philippines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese non-SEC registered POGOs cannot deny the fact that they have brought in their equipment, rented or bought office facilities, and have employees working in the Philippines. Thus, they cannot claim they have no physical presence here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barbers also referred to Presidential Decree (PD) No. 1869 that regulates POGO activities in the Philippines, and said it provided no distinction between operators whether they were domestic or foreign regarding the 5 per cent tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said: \u201cI therefore believe that there is no legal issue for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to impose and collect franchise tax from all POGOs be it domestic or offshore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Representative Robert “Ace” Barbers says Philippines law makes no distinction between local and foreign operators and that all POGOs must pay the tax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7511,"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 legislators, including Rep. Robert \"Ace\" Barbers, are intensifying calls for all Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) to pay the 5% franchise tax, irrespective of their physical location or SEC registration status. This initiative aims to collect an estimated P50 billion in unpaid taxes, with funds earmarked for Covid-19 response programs, asserting that existing law makes no distinction between domestic and foreign operators for tax purposes.","focusai_entities":"Robert \u201cAce\u201d Barbers, Frankling Drilon, Leila De Lima, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bureau of Internal Revenue","focusai_location":"Philippines, Surigao del Norte","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (1.0), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"POGO Tax Enforcement Outlook?","query":"What are the immediate next steps for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to enforce the collection of the P50 billion in alleged unpaid franchise taxes from POGOs, and what legal challenges are anticipated from non-compliant operators?"},{"label":"Market Impact of POGO Tax?","query":"How will the stringent enforcement of the 5% franchise tax and the collection of back taxes impact the operational viability and market presence of POGOs in the Philippines, potentially leading to market consolidation or exits?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,158,16333],"tags":[405,15789,1206],"class_list":["post-7509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-pagcor","tag-pogos","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7509","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=7509"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777010493,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7509\/revisions\/777010493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}