go through Kenneth Christian L. Brazilian Rio, reporter
Senators and Congressmen Have agreed not to ban orePorts under the new fiscal system For large miners trying to increase government share in mineral income.
After nearly a decade of legislation delays, the Senate and House bicolor committee settled its bill’s divisions on Wednesday.
As of press time, the Senate had approved the report of the two conference committees, with only Senator Risa N. Hontiveros-Baraquel voted on it.
The House also approved the report, which will now be sent to Malacañang for the president’s signature.
“The past three Congresses have been waiting,” Albert Rep. Jose Ma. Clemente S. Salceda, who heads the House Committee, said in a statement. “Today, it finally arrived at the president’s table.”
The Philippines is seeking to simplify its mining fiscal system to allow large miners to make greater industry profits. The current tax obligations to miners vary by their agreement with the government.
The proposed law aims to charge 5% of their total output from large miners operating in the mineral pre-order and set up a profit margin-based royalty system ranging from 1% to 5% of people operating outdoors, a copy of which is a copy by a settlement version BusinessWorld.
The bill also includes a five-tiered tax on unexpected profits from 1% to 10%.
“While the inevitable increase in taxes, we believe this progressive and responsive approach will benefit the government more when global commodity prices rise without undue burden on miners during market downturns,” Michael T. Toledo, chairman of the Philippines Mining Company, said in a Viber message.
The measure also proposes a “fence” for large-scale miners who will treat miners as a separate taxable entity under each withdrawal agreement held with the government.
Southeast Asian countries are estimated to have an estimated $1 trillion in ore reserves and are the world’s largest nickel suppliers in China and Japan, which are the largest nickel suppliers, as the country relies on ore exports due to limited smelting capacity due to high power costs and infrastructure constraints.
According to the Ministry of Environment’s Bureau of Mining and Earth Sciences, about $7.37 billion of ore was exported last year.
A copy of the reconciliation version shows that the Senate provisions were lifted in the ban on export of raw ore.
The Senate version includes a five-year grace period, which then bans unprocessed minerals so that the payer can set up processing plants in the country.
Mr Salceda said there was no formal study on the implementation of the ore export ban.
“You can’t just say we’re delaying the establishment of domestic ore processing facilities for five years. What if it takes 10 years?” he said.
Mr Toledo welcomes the decision of the MPs to lift the proposed ban on exporting ore.
“This is a strategic step towards revitalizing the Philippines’ mining industry,” he said.
The Philippine Nickel Industry Association said the decision was a “prudent and forward-looking step to protect work, safeguard investor confidence and reflect a more realistic understanding of the challenges surrounding domestic mineral processing.”
However, Mr Salceda said the Bisea Conference Committee decided that the proposed ban on ore exports should be made by the next Parliament.
The value of minerals
“The most meaningful part of this reform is not the tax rate. It is the state’s ability to finally see and value what it takes from our soil,” Mr Salceda said.
Under the proposed law, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and Customs is required to review the sale and export of minerals and expand its authority to review mining documents, including marketing documents and analytical reports.
It also requires the establishment of laboratories and the purchase of advanced mineral analysis tools to help determine the quality of raw ore derived from the mine.
“The government will also be able to use the metal pricing database and other global benchmarks to evaluate whether the announced prices reflect the length value of True Arm,” Salceda said.
Toledo said the measure would provide a “equitable and more sustainable” source of government revenue and encourage foreign investment in the industry. According to Salceda, the government can earn up to 5 billion Philippine pesos per year.
Meanwhile, AP Securities, Inc. Alfred Benjamin R. Garcia, head of research.
“Forcing the industry to invest in processing and refining is an unnecessary burden,” he said in a Viber message.
John Paolo R. Rivera, a senior researcher at the Philippine Development Institute, said having a transparent fiscal system for the mining industry would make the country more attractive to foreign investors.
“Clearness of taxation reduces regulatory uncertainty, which has been a key deterrent in history,” he said in a Viber message.
He added that the government should consider developing a mineral development plan and developing a long-term industrialization plan for the mining sector to further attract investment into domestic industries.
