Bill establishing new fiscal regime for mining passed

A group of visitors tours a mining tunnel of Lepanto Consolidated Mining Co., one of the country’s top gold producers, in Mankayan, Benguet, in this 2018 photo. (File photo by EV ESPIRITU / Inquirer Northern Luzon)

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives approved on final reading a bill introducing a new fiscal regime for the country’s mining sector — one of the priority measures of the Marcos administration — during a session that ended past midnight on Tuesday.

Voting 272-4-1, the lower chamber approved House Bill No. 8937, or the proposed measure enhancing the fiscal regime for the mining industry. The proposed measure will impose margin-based royalties and windfall profits tax on miners.

The bill was sponsored by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, chair of the House ways and means committee, and Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Angela Suansing.

HB 8937 imposes royalty payments on large-scale metallic mining operations within mineral reservations with its rate of royalty payments of 3 percent of the gross output; large-scale metallic mining operations outside mineral reservations with margin-based royalty on income from its operations; and small-scale metallic mining operations with royalty worth one-tenth of 1 percent of gross output.

Tax on windfall profits

It will also impose a margin-based windfall profits tax gained from mining operations for each taxable year.

Small-scale miners are also required, under the bill, to register with the Mines and Geosciences Bureau and the Mining Board of the concerned local government.

They will be encouraged, as well, to organize into cooperatives to make them qualify for the awarding of a People’s Small-Scale Mining Contract.

Mining firms will also be mandated to submit reports on all their sales and exports of minerals, mineral products, and raw ores to the Bureau of Internal Revenue.