NGCP loses property tax fight with various mayors
The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines has lost yet another round in its battle to stop revenue-hungry mayors from imposing tax on its equipment and substations spread throughout the archipelago.
The NGCP, whose main partners include SM heir Henry Sy Jr., insurance magnate-car dealer Robert Coyiuto Jr. and former finance and trade secretary Jose Pardo, suffered the latest defeat from Tupi, South Cotabato, the fruit and flower capital of the region. Last week, the Court of Tax Appeals en banc upheld the town of Tupi’s position that NGCP, which operates the highvoltage power lines across the country, must pay the contested real property tax first, a condition precedent, before the regulatory authorities can acquire jurisdiction of the protest.
The NGCP has maintained that its transmission backbone and substations are exempt from local government’s property tax, refusing similar impositions earlier made by Cebu City, the Ilocos Sur province, and the towns of San Francisco, Agusan del Sur and Labrador, Pangasinan.
But the tax appellate court clarified that the exemption provided by NGCP's franchise is not automatic “but involves a process by which the provincial, city or municipal Pardo assessor evaluates various documents submitted by the taxpayer to prove the entitlement to said exemption.”
And Section 252 of the Local Government Code of 1991 requires that before a protest may be entertained by both the central and local boards of assessments appeals, the contested real property tax should have first been paid and such payment shall be held in trust by the local treasurer, the tax appellate court said.
But if the NGCP is questioning the very legality of the assessment, a question of law, then it should have instead directly attacked the authority and the power of the local assessor and the local treasurer before the Regional Trial Court, said the tax appellate court, quoting a 2014 Supreme Court ruling involving NGCP's predecessor, the National Power Corp., and the town of Navotas.
It was not immediately clear who had been providing legal counsel and representation that led to the string of tax defeats suffered by the consortium.
Incidentally, there is one lawyer who sits in the NGCP board, Paul Sagayo Jr., a professor of the now very-well connected San Beda College of Law.
Money talks
• F1 Hotel developer Philip Cea has won the trademark fight to keep the F1 name for his condominium building in The Fort against the protest of the international Formula One motor racing group.
• Recently retired SGV chairman Cirilo Noel will cross over to the client side and be elevated next month to the Globe Telecom board as an independent director, vice Manuel Pacis, who has been with the Ayala telecom company since 2011 after his retirement from Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Globe’s current external auditor is SGV competitor Navarro Amper & Co.
Heard through the grapevine
Senior investment banker Guillermo Luchangco had ticked off the House committee on good government by not attending its hearings that a show-cause order has been issued by committee chairman, Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel.
Luchangco and Medco Holdings chairman Bobby Cheng Sai Chong are the sub-lessees of a 4.5-hectare government property at the corner of Roxas Boulevard and Buendia that the original lessee, Philippine Exporters Confederation, is paying the Department of Trade and Industry only – this is not a typographical error – P1,000 a year.