MANILA — Authorities on Friday padlocked the office of a Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) licensee that was slapped with more than PHP114 million worth of penalties for failure to pay a 5-percent franchise tax for its 2019 revenues.
A team from the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) Task Force POGO was supposed to issue a mission order against Synchronization Anywhere For You Inc. (SAFYI) on Friday morning but was told that the company is not holding office on the site where the team went. The team did some changes in its plan.
In a media interview, BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa said the information they have is based on the data they got from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor).
Asked on what made them decide to push with the closure order, Guballa said “Leakage in POGO industry that licensee (is) about to be closed.”
“We can’t defer closure,” he said.
The company is holding office at the Eastfield Center, Macapagal Avenue, Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City.
Department of Finance (DOF) Assistant Secretary Tony Lambino told reporters that the POGO licensee’s office was traced to “the same building, different floor.”
Guballa said the offshore-based company is registered with Pagcor but not with the BIR, which should not be the case since its license allows it to operate in the country.
He said POGO licensees are the companies that service operators link with to be able to conduct their business.
POGO service operators are the ones that have people who directly talk to online gamblers overseas.
Guballa said they find it hard to run after licensees because these companies question the BIR’s move, citing that they are not conducting their main operations locally.
“But they are registered with Pagcor so we are just following the trail, where they are registered based on Pagcor records,” he said.
He said they do not have any idea when SAFYI started operations in the Philippines but cited that POGOs, in general, started to do business in the country late 2017 and full-scale operations started in 2019.
He said BIR personnel need to team up with other government agencies to run after POGO companies because “BIR cannot do it alone.”
“We have to get data from other government agencies so that we can fully complete our data and assess these service providers and licensees,” he said.
The inter-agency task force, composed of personnel from the DOF, BIR, Pagcor, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Bureau of Immigration (BI), “was created so that it will be easier for the government to crack down the POGOs.”
To date, there are about 60 POGO licensees that are “mostly registered with Pagcor,” Guballa said.
He said House Bill 5267, which is authored by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda and aims to establish a definite tax regime for POGOs, will be a big help in the drive against erring POGOs.
The proposed measure “will be good for the BIR because we just implement laws,” he added. (PNA)
