SENATE majority leader Juan Miguel Zubiri yesterday said government should impose heavier taxes on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) to generate more funds for its COVID-19 measures instead of taxing small online sellers.
Zubiri said that while he understands that the government needs additional sources of revenues to help in the fight against COVID-19, taxing small online sellers is “not only insensitive but totally unnecessary” since a lot of them have only been trying to make a living while most parts of the country remain under different community quarantines.
Zubiri said “those with devious minds planning these tax schemes” will have little or no support from the Senate regarding the measure.
Instead of wasting their time and energy on the proposed tax scheme, Zubiri said the economic leaders should instead heavily tax POGOs which he noted still owe the government more than P50 billion in taxes.
“Let’s slap a heavy excise tax or franchise tax on top of the income tax charged to them (POGOs). Why make our small enterprising and entrepreneurial Pinoys suffer from the threat of taxation and allow (foreign) POGO (operators) to operate while evading or underpaying their taxes,” Zubiri said.
“We understand that our government needs revenue but we must focus on what’s important, on which industry need government support to survive, as well as which industry could share the burden. Definitely, taxing small online businesses is not the answer,” he added.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, vice chair of the Senate economic affairs committee, said talks on taxing online sellers should be done after the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
Gatchalian said timing is the key to taxation.
“Tingnan muna natin ang kanilang kalagayan at hayaan muna natin sila lumago at kung maging stable na itong kondisyon natin, wala na tayong pandemya, ay saka natin pag-isipan kung paano bubuwisan. Pero sa ngayon ay hindi maganda ‘yung timing (Let us see first how they fare and let their businesses grown, and when the pandemic is over, then let us think of ways on how to tax them. I think to impose taxes on them at this time is not very good),” Gatchalian told radio dzBB in an interview.
Last June 1, the BIR issued Revenue Memorandum Circular No. 60-2020 setting a July 31 deadline for all online sellers to register and pay their taxes. The move elicited strong opposition from lawmakers and small online entrepreneurs.
Gatchalian said having these online sellers register in person at BIR offices could mean more operational expenses for the government than what it can collect from them.
“Ang sabi ko nga baka mas magastos ang administrative costs nitong pagre-register dahil gagastos ‘yung gobyerno. ‘Yung pagre-register, ‘yung pag-audit, ‘yung pag-check kung tama ba ‘yung binebenta nila, mas magastos pa para sa ating gobyerno kaysa doon sa buwis na masisingil sa kanila (What I’m saying is that the government might incur more expenses during the registration, audit, and verifying if the online sellers are selling the right items as against the taxes we can collect from these online sellers,” Gatchalian added.
He also said having online sellers troop to BIR offices to register their businesses is very risky as COVID-19 may spread even more.
He said it is best if government collects the unpaid taxes from POGOs which he claimed has now reached P70 billion.
“Iilan lang ito, nabilang namin 20 plus na POGO, makakalikom ka na agad ng 70 billion kesa patawan mo ang 900 plus thousand na mga online sellers (To our count, there are only more than 20 POGOs and we can already have P70 billion as compared if we tax the more than 900,000 online sellers),” he added.