The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) plans to audit the remittances by foreign nationals working in Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (Pogos) to ensure they are remitting the correct amount of taxes to the national government.
BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel S.D. Guballa told reporters the agency plans to do so as preliminary figures show around 130,000 foreign nationals working in Pogos are not registered with the BIR.
“We are looking at [all 130,000 of] them; what we are checking is if they are paying their taxes. We cannot validate yet [if they are not remitting] because the other Pogos have remittances; we still have to check if it’s correct,” Guballa said. “We are counter-checking the [tax and] income that they receive.”
He explained that Pogos may be registered with the BIR wherein their remittances are accounted for, but foreign workers being employed by them may not be registered, which may affect the amount of tax remittances remitted to the bureau.
Guballa added that the BIR survey of Pogos is ongoing. He also said the BIR believes that if these workers are in the online gaming sector, the majority are Chinese.
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said last month that in the computation of the Department of Finance (DOF), at least P22 billion a year is not being collected in the income taxes of Pogo workers.
Dominguez said during a meeting with the interagency task force tasked to come up with the list of foreign workers that, with an average income tax of 25 percent of their salaries, the amount of uncollected monthly taxes is estimated at P18,750 from each foreign worker. This is roughly P22.5 billion a year in foregone income tax revenues.
The finance chief said he has also asked the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) to resolve this estimate and the claim by Pogo service providers that these foreign workers are paid an average of P35,800 or about 5,000 yuan a month, representing only about $700 a month.
The interagency task force tasked to come up with the foreign workers list includes Pagcor, the Department of Labor and Employment, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bureau of Immigration of the Department of Justice and the various special economic zones.
Guballa said, after collecting evidence, the BIR can act against foreign nationals working in the country or in Pogos found to be not registered with the agency.
“If they’re not registered, then we impose penalties,” he said. “We cannot just say that if they are not registered that we will send them to jail immediately; that can’t be.”