{"id":7658,"date":"2020-06-29T21:54:21","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T21:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=7658"},"modified":"2026-04-24T04:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:05:09","slug":"pagcor-warns-pogos-leaving-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/pagcor-warns-pogos-leaving-philippines","title":{"rendered":"PAGCOR warns POGOs leaving Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The body warns that two POGOs have pulled out of the Philippines due to tax battle with the Bureau of Internal Revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Philippines.- Andrea Domingo, head of the <strong><em>Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation<\/em><\/strong> (PAGCOR), has said that two POGOs have already left the Philippines and more were considering pulling out owing to government demands for unpaid taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Domingo\u2019s statement, Suncity, a unit of Macau&#8217;s giant Suncity Group, and Don Tencess Asian Solutions have requested the cancellation of their licences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">PAGCOR said others had said they were going to leave but had not delivered official notification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, consulted by IAG, Suncity Group said Domingo must have been referring to its telebetting services, and not its junket business in Manila.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Suncity said: \u201cThe junket business in Manila is definitely important to us and we can\u2019t find any reason to leave Manila at this particular moment\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Philippine government has warned that POGOs that have tax debts with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will not be allowed to resume operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Only a <strong><em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/11-pogos-allowed-to-resume-operations\" target=\"_blank\">handful of POGOs<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>have resumed operations following the Covid-19 lockdown. It was revealed recently that only two have paid taxes in the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Philippines government expects to <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/the-philippines-expects-p20-billion-from-pogos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">collect about P20 billion<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (USD399million) from POGOs in 2020, but many of the firms argue that they are not obliged to pay the 5 per cent franchise tax paid by local operators because they are not based in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The body warns that two POGOs have pulled out of the Philippines due to tax battle with the Bureau of Internal Revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Two Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) have ceased operations in the Philippines, with more considering withdrawal, amidst ongoing tax disputes with the Bureau of Internal Revenue. PAGCOR confirmed the license cancellations of Suncity (telebetting services) and Don Tencess Asian Solutions, as the government seeks to collect P20 billion in franchise taxes from the sector.","focusai_entities":"PAGCOR, Suncity, Suncity Group, Don Tencess Asian Solutions, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Andrea Domingo, IAG","focusai_location":"Philippines, Macau, Manila","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.7), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.9), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"POGO Tax Implications","query":"What are the specific legal arguments POGOs are employing to contest the 5% franchise tax, and how might a definitive ruling impact the broader B2B\/B2C licensing framework in the Philippines?"},{"label":"Regulatory Framework Stability","query":"How will PAGCOR and the BIR adapt their governance frameworks to prevent further POGO exits, and what measures are being considered to ensure regulatory compliance and revenue collection from remaining operators?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,158,16333],"tags":[405,128,15789,1206],"class_list":["post-7658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-pagcor","tag-philippines","tag-pogos","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7658","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=7658"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777010526,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7658\/revisions\/777010526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}