Smart top taxpayer; STAR in top 500

MANILA, Philippines - Smart Communications took the No.1 spot in the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)’s top 500 taxpayers’ list for 2013.

The Philippine STAR, meanwhile, barged into the list of top non-individual taxpayers – one of only two newspapers in the list. It ranked 287th with its P110.37-million tax payments. The only other newspaper in the list, Philippine Daily Inquirer, ranked 493rd with P63 million in tax payments.

Philippine STAR subsidiaries Pilipino Star Printing Co. and Pilipino Star Ngayon Inc. paid P51 million and P25.4 million, respectively.

Smart, a unit of telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., is led by businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan.

Smart moved up one notch to grab the top spot from the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) with payment of P10.89 billion in corporate income taxes.

The amount marked a 37.15-percent increase over the P7.94 billion remitted to the government in 2012.

The tax payment was more than double the amount of taxes paid by rival firm Globe Telecom.

Meralco slid to second place after paying P9.69 billion in taxes. The figure, however, was 3.7 percent higher than the P9.34 billion remitted a year earlier.

From eighth place, San Miguel Brewery Inc., the joint venture between food, power and infrastructure giant San Miguel Corp. and Japan’s Kirin Holdings Co. Ltd., made a big leap to rank third with P4.88 billion in income taxes due. The income tax payment, however, was lower than the P5.08 billion settled the previous year.

Trailing closely behind was multinational giant Nestlé with tax payments amounting to P4.81 billion. This was 9.4 percent less than the P5.3 billion paid in 2012.

The Swiss food firm climbed three notches to occupy the No. 4 slot.

Global oil giant Chevron Malampaya LLC and Shell Philippines Exploration B.V., took the fifth and sixth slots, respectively, with income tax payments amounting to P4.52 billion and P4.48 billion.

Ranking seventh was Globe Telecom which turned over P4 billion to the government, an increase of 8.7 percent from the P3.68 billion remitted the previous year.

Leading cigarette firm Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. placed eighth after settling P3.42 billion in taxes. It was followed by Chemwealth Inc. with tax payments amounting to P2.91 billion.

Completing the top 10 was property giant SM Prime Holdings Inc. of the Philippines’ richest man Henry Sy. It remitted P2.78 billion to the national treasury, up 14.4 percent year on year.

In the top 20 were the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. with income taxes due at P2.14 billion, Metro Rail Transit Corp. (P2.04 billion), Land Bank of the Philippines (P2.03 billion), Emperador Distillers Inc. (P1.98 billion), Unilever Philippines (P1.85 billion), Manila Water Co. (P1.78 billion), Holcim Philippines (P1.76 billion), Monde Nissin Corp. (P1.69 billion), Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (P1.6 billion) and Ayala Land (P1.57 billion).