The Philippines’ tax agency is looking at 50 companies operating online casinos aimed at Chinese gamblers along with thousands of Chinese workers at the sites.
The companies will be required to register with the Bureau of Internal Revenue before the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. will renew their licenses, the Department of Finance said.
The tax bureau also wants to join an inter-agency team monitoring the number of Chinese nationals working in the online gaming industry, Bloomberg News reported.
More than 50 Philippines-based offshore gaming operators, or POGOs, have set up businesses since the country started licenses in 2016. That has triggered immigration of thousands of Chinese workers to the country.
“We want to trace these Chinese nationals employed by these gaming operators,” a statement by Bureau of Internal Revenue Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa said during a recent Department of Finance Executive Committee meeting. “They allowed us to join the task force because we are asking for data from Immigration and the Department of Labor and Employment on the list of these foreign nationals.”
