Universal Entertainment taking hands-off approach on Pagcor-BIR tax issue

Pagcor urges Kazuo Okada to resolve Entertainment City land dealWith all the issues Kazuo Okada and Tiger Resort Leisure and Entertainment are dealing with right now, getting involved in the ongoing tax issue between the Pagcor and the Bureau of Internal Revenue in the Philippines doesn’t sound like a good idea.

Which is why it’s smartly keeping a hands-off approach, opting to let the two agencies settle the dispute on their own. Tiger Resort president Masahiro Terrada said as much, distancing himself and the company from getting involved in the matter. “We believe that Pagcor is already sorting this out. We’re out of this,” Terrada said, while holding out hope that Pagcor and its licensees will get a fair shake.

News of Tiger Resorts’ intentions to not get involved in the matter comes a few days after its parent company, Universal Entertainment, had finally struck an agreement with on-again, off-again local partner Robinsons Land Corp to develop the $2-billion resort-casino project, after almost a year of negotiating that was thought to have been scrapped a little over a month ago.

Tiger Resorts isn’t making light of the situation, though, because if the BIR’s ruling holds up, it’s going to significantly alter revenue expectations in the country for all of Pagcor’s licensees, including Tiger. The hope is that a resolution will be made between the BIR and Pagcor that would keep the latter and its licensees from having to pay the 30 percent corporate income tax instead of the 5 percent franchise tax on gross gaming revenues that was initially agreed upon before the BIR’s now infamous “Revenue Circular 33-2013” caught everyone with their proverbial pants down.

But with so many issues on their plate, it was only prudent for Tiger to leave the negotiations to Pagcor and the BIR. After all, it’s still dealing with bribery allegations that if proven to have happened, could cost the operator its license in the country.

It seems that after getting involved in one too many controversies in the past few years, Kazuo Okada and Tiger Resorts are steering clear from another one,  ultimately deciding that the best course of action is no action at all.