Gov’t to fasttrack measure on mining revenues sharing

MANILA, Philippines - The government is looking to fasttrack the draft bill for the revenue sharing scheme of the mining industry, a cabinet official said.

“As soon as possible, we’d like to come up (with the draft bill) so we can lessen the anxiety of the industry. We don’t want the industry to be anxious about it,” Trade secretary Gregory Domingo told reporters.

He said the draft bill being crafted by the Environment, Finance and
Trade departments, is close to completion with just one administrative matter left to be decided by the Mining Industry Coordinating Council
(MICC).

The MICC, a joint committee of the Economic Development Cluster and the Climate Change Cluster created by Executive Order 79 or the mining
policy released in 2012, has approved in principle the revenue-sharing scheme which will provide the government a higher tax take from mining activities.

Domingo said under the approved scheme, mining firms will have to pay taxes based on a certain percentage of gross or net revenues, whichever is higher.

He said the government will also get a share when a mining firm gets extraordinary profit from its operations, like in times of high metal prices.
“It starts when their profit exceeds a certain level,” he said.

At present, mining firms pay taxes depending on their contract with the government.

A Financial or Technical Assistance Agreement for mining requires 50-50 sharing of revenues between the firm and the government.
A Mineral Production Sharing Agreement meanwhile, specifies a two percent excise tax of gross sales of production, as well as regular corporate income tax, business tax and payments for indigenous people
affected by the mining operations.

As for those operating in mineral reservation areas, an additional five percent royalty will have to be remitted to the government.

The mining industry has been waiting for the government’s new mining revenue sharing scheme citing that such is necessary to decide on new
investments here.

Without a new revenue sharing scheme for mining, the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines said earlier it would be difficult to get new investments in the country.