The government of Eastern Samar said that it looks forward to more than P100 million in excise tax collections from mining companies.

Eden Ivy Rose Balagasay, the province’s legal officer, said that the province has been coordinating with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to determine exactly how much excise taxes the miners have thus far paid and the amount of share Eastern Samar would get.

Based on data from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), Balagasay said that the provincial government expects to get over P100 million from the miners’ excise tax payments.

“To be safe, we can say that based on the production reports and data submitted to us by MGB, we are expecting our share to be more than P100 million,” she said.

However, Balagasay said that they do not expect to get the whole amount right away because of the tedious process of documenting all payments.

“What the DBM will likely release to us is just a portion of that amount that will have been documented and cross-checked by then, and then certified by the BIR and BTr [Bureau of the Treasury],” she stated.

Balagasay, who is also Eastern Samar’s representative in the inter-agency Multipartite Monitoring Team (MMT) for mining, said that as of the latest follow-up, the Revenue Accounting Division (RAD) at the BIR central office was still processing the pertinent tax data.

Officers from BIR-RAD told Eastern Samar officials that their office was still cross-checking their data with those at the revenue district office (RDO) in the province as well as the authorized agent banks where the taxes were paid by the miners, Balagasay said.

“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.

As mandated by the Republic Act (RA) No. 8424, or the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, an excise tax of four 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 states that LGUs are entitled to 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 where 35 percent of the amount will go to the barangay, 45 percent to the municipality, and 20 percent to the province.

Unpaid real property taxes

On the other hand, mining companies were asked to settle their unpaid real property taxes (RPTs) due to the province and their host municipality of Guiuan.

Eastern Samar’s Provincial Treasurer Antonia Macawile, citing provincial government data, said that six miners have combined RPT arrears of over P133.8 million based on the aggregate volumes listed in their chromite and nickel ore stocks transport permits (OTPs).

Although the provincial government has no regulatory control over miners, Eastern Samar government is keen to ask the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to revoke their Mineral Production Sharing Agreements (MPSA) should they fail to settle their tax obligations, said Provincial Assessor Manuel Baldono.

“Governor Evardone wants the miners to settle their RPT arrears due their host LGUs because the unpaid taxes, along with the RPTs they are supposed to pay moving forward, will go a long way in funding development projects like roads, school buildings and water supply facilities for us Estehanons,” Macawile said.