E. Samar eyes tax settlement by 2024
According to her, the amount should be equivalent to 40 percent of the excise taxes paid by the miners since they started operating in the province
The collected tax is to be divided among LGUs hosting the mining operations, 35 percent of which will go to the barangay, 45 percent to the municipality, and 20 percent to the province.
Eastern Samar expects to get at least a portion of the long-delayed tax settlement of about P100 million from local miners, a substantial revenue stream that could help propel growth in the province.
In a statement sent to the press on Wednesday, Provincial Legal Officer Eden Ivy Rose Balagasay disclosed that the Bureau of Internal Revenue or BIR has begun collecting data to determine the unpaid excise taxes that miners owe.
Balagasay noted that the Revenue Accounting Division at the BIR central office in Quezon City is now processing the relevant tax data to support the release of the actual amount due to Eastern Samar.
According to her, the amount should be equivalent to 40 percent of the excise taxes paid by the miners since they started operating in the province.
“We learned from the
BIR-RAD officers that they were still collating data to support the release of our (excise tax) share and that they were cross-checking their data with the RDO and the authorized agent banks where the miners’ tax payments were made,” Balagasay said.
P100M as share
“To be safe, we can say that based on the production reports and data submitted to us by MGB, we expect our share to be more than P100 million,” she added.
Balagasay sits as the governor’s representative to the inter-agency Multipartite Monitoring Team for mining in the province.
The latest data from the Eastern Samar government showed that six miners have combined real property tax arrears estimated at P133,866,943 as per the aggregate volumes listed in their chromite and nickel ore stocks transport permit.
These companies are Cambayas Mining Corp., Emir Mineral Resources Corp., Techiron Resources Inc., Mt. Sinai Exploration and Development Corp., Chromiteking Incorporated, as well as Nickelace Inc. whose MPSA is being operated by Global Min-met Resources Inc. and Verum
Terra Geosciences Inc.
The Department of Budget and Management or DBM is the government agency tasked to release the LGUs’ mining tax share based on the Joint Certification issued by the BIR and the Bureau of the Treasury on mining tax collections. It should follow the schedule of the corresponding shares of the LGU beneficiaries.
Following Republic Act 8424, or the National Internal Revenue Code Of 1997, as amended by the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law of 2017, an excise tax of 4 percent is imposed on extracted or produced minerals or quarry resources based on the actual market value of the gross output of these products at the time of their removal.
Meanwhile, Section 290 of the Local Government Code of 1991 mandated that LGUs should get a 40 percent share of the gross earnings from “mining taxes, royalties from mineral reservations, forestry charges, and fees and revenues collected from energy resources” in their areas.
The collected tax is to be divided among LGUs hosting the mining operations, 35 percent of which will go to the barangay, 45 percent to the municipality, and 20 percent to the province.