‘Web-based digital economy will generate add’l revenue for NMI’
Senate President Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan) believes the CNMI will reap significant benefit from attracting internet-based businesses and remote workers to become residents.
DeLeon Guerrero underscored the need for the CNMI to encourage the public and private sectors to engage in internet-based digital economy with her introduction of a resolution to encourage the public and private sectors to support the acquisition and retention of resident individuals and businesses participating in an internet-based digital economy.
“Besides tourism, this is another business sector of an economy that we can attract into our market to generate additional revenue,” DeLeon Guerrero told Saipan Tribune yesterday.
The Senate president noted in her Senate Resolution 23-14 that one of the biggest economic changes brought about in the past four years has been a move to an internet-based remote workforce. In the U.S. alone, she said, 13% of the total workforce now works completely online, remotely.
The Senate president said CNMI-based remote workers earn their income from sources outside the CNMI, yet these workers spend that income and pay taxes on that income in the Commonwealth.
DeLeon Guerrero said U.S. citizens and permanent residents who already work remotely can relocate to the CNMI and immediately reap the benefits of the islands’ beautiful climate, friendly and family-oriented culture, and extremely favorable tax code.
She said the Guam-CNMI Visa Waiver program gives a unique opportunity for citizens of 12 countries—representing a combined population of 350 million people—to travel visa-free to the CNMI for purposes of business or pleasure and to stay for up to 45 days at a time. These countries are Australia, Brunei, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.
The CNMI has no restrictions on foreign ownership of CNMI-incorporated entities.
DeLeon Guerrero said remote workers from countries under the Guam-CNMI Visa Waiver program can establish businesses in CNMI and source income inside the Commonwealth while they are visiting and working within the Commonwealth.
She said internet-based businesses are already a listed business type that can take advantage of the Qualifying Certificate program under the Investment Incentive Act of 2000.
The Senate president said U.S.-based technology companies, from startup to corporate giant, can relocate all or part of their business operations to CNMI and see a greatly reduced tax burden while making much-needed investment to the Commonwealth.
Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero
