OPPOSITION stakeholders have thumbed down the proposal granting tax and regulatory incentives to Solar Para Sa Bayan Corporation (SPSBC).
In a statement, 1PACMAN Partylist Reps. Mikee Romero and Eric Pineda said the original franchise bill was “highly questionable” and argued that the same incentives should be granted to all renewable energy companies. They said there are already a hundred renewable energy companies in the country today.
SPSBC is owned by Leandro Leviste who is also Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Solar Philippines, which claims to be Southeast Asia’s largest solar power company.
“Instead of granting the exclusive tax privileges to the Leviste company, the same incentives should be given to all small renewable energy companies and DPTs [distributed power technology companies] in order to level the playing field for all these companies, while promoting renewable energy development,” Romero said.
The original version of House Bills (HB) 8013 and 8015, which grants a national franchise to SPSBC, included provisions that exempt the company from paying a wide range of national and local government taxes, duties, fees, charges and royalties.
These include exemption from paying the 12 percent value added tax on sales and 32 percent corporate income tax, on top of exemption from local government taxes and fees.
In lieu of all these taxes and duties, a 3-percent franchise tax was proposed to be collected from SPSBC under the original bills. But the proposal to impose the low franchise tax was also not retained in the substitute bill.
“The bill will give undue advantages to this group. This is a master franchising scheme of the whole solar power industry,” Romero said.
Think tank Infrawatch PH Convenor Terry Ridon also said the “special entitlements” embedded in the proposed franchise “were never part of previous power-related legislative franchises.”
The substitute bill has retained provisions, allowing SPSBC to venture into all types of power-related businesses — from power generation, distribution and transmission — in all parts of the country, including in areas franchised to existing distribution utilities and electric cooperatives.
However, Philreca decried these provisions because these would allow the Leviste company to encroach into areas Philreca members operate. According to Philreca, these provisions violate the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (Epira).
The substitute bill also inserted a provision emphasizing that the Leviste company must comply with the Renewable Energy Act and the Epira.
The two original House bills (8013 and 8015) were filed last month with the House Legislative Franchises Committee and approved at the Committee level after only two hearings.