Tax take from POGO tops P1.79B
Credit to Author: Mayvelin U. Caraballo, TMT| Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2019 18:36:01 +0000
Income tax collection from online gaming operators and their service providers continue to improve as of September this year.
In a briefer presented to the House Ways and Means Committee, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said its income tax collection from Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO) workers hit P1.79 billion in the first nine months of the year.
This amount was higher than the P1.4 billion collected as of August this year.
The tax agency has a collection target of P2 billion a month from the withholding taxes of POGO workers. With this amount, taxes to be collected from the industry would hit P24 billion a year — a revenue source that was non-existent four or five years ago, before President Rodrigo Duterte handed over control of the POGO companies to Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).
To achieve this target, the BIR assured it would continue to conduct formal audit and investigation “against those who failed to reply or pay the withholding taxes per letter notice.”
To date, 164 letter notices to service providers with total estimated final withholding tax liabilities amounting to P25.13 billion had been issued, according to the tax bureau.
It also said that strict monitoring of remittance of witholding tax by POGO service providers will continue.
Off-shore based POGO licensees/operators will continue to be required to register with the BIR.
Joint enforcement activity against erring POGO service providers will also be conducted, it added.
The tax agency said there are 218 POGO service providers and 60 Pagcor-registered POGOs operating in the Philippines.
Citing Pagcor data, it said there are 86,172 individuals currently employed by 215 POGO service providers. Out of the total, 14,829 or 17 percent are Filipinos, while 71,343 or 83 percent are foreigners.
“Of the number of foreigners rendering services to these service providers, 62,726 or 88 percent are Chinese,” the BIR said.
Earlier, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd said the tax bureau will squeeze all POGO service providers that remain non-compliant with tax laws and regulations despite several notices.
Dominguez also stressed the ongoing BIR campaign against unscrupulous POGOs would benefit not only the government’s revenue collection, but also Pagcor as the gaming regulator, the Bureau of Immigration as well as the Department of Labor and Employment.