Amid graft rap vs Vico Sotto, Converge says no tax discount from Pasig

Fiber internet service provider Converge ICT Solutions Inc. on Wednesday said it has not been granted any form of tax discount by the Pasig City government.

At a press briefing, Converge chief finance officer Robert Yu said the company "has yet to receive any formal complaints or court summons on this alleged tax discount given by Pasig to us."

"For the record, we have not received any tax discount from the City of Pasig," Yu said.

This developed after a graft complaint was filed against Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto and two other city officials for allegedly granting a a 100% discount on Converge's waiver of penalties as the telecommunications provider accumulated business tax amounting to P3.67 million in 2022.

The complaint claimed that the P3.67-million business tax dues included surcharge and interest due to Converge's under-declaration of the extent of its operations, particularly the number of its employees and the size of its office space.

Moreover, the complainants alleged that since 2018, Converge has been declaring that its office space is 12 square meters, with four to five employees, when it is allegedly employing more than 2,000 employees, and occupying four floors of office space.

Upon reviewing Converge's correspondences with the Pasig local government, Yu said that "the only things we discussed were reconsideration for some line items that pertain to some services that were not rendered to us like trash collection."

"This is all in the course of our application for the renewal of our business permits," he said.

In a separate comment, Converge clarified that when it started operating in Pasig in 2011, its operations "was really just very small."

"The declaration on the space and employee size was just carried over in subsequent years, whenever the business permit is renewed," Converge said.

"The company’s operation only grew fairly recently after it held its initial public offering in October 2020,” it added.

Converge noted that information pertaining to the company’s office space and employee size "has been updated, and the company was accordingly assessed the fees for the business permits and the same was paid by the Company."

Meanwhile, Yu said that Converge "has always been a good corporate citizen and we always try to be a model of corporate governance, central to which we need to ensure we are faithfully paying our rightful tax applications and other payments due to the government."

Sotto, in a comment to a Facebook post, said that filing of the case was part of dirty tactics of some political groups.

"This is not the first time. Notice the interesting timing of this—at the same time that certain political groups are ramping up their political activities," the Pasig mayor said. — VDV, GMA Integrated News