The Commonwealth Development Authority\u2019s planned suspension of Lao Lao Bay Golf & Resort\u2019s qualifying certificate was found \u201cagreeable,\u201d according to CDA executive director Manuel Sablan.<\/p>\n
Sablan said it was \u201cindicated to us they were agreeable to suspending [the QC] until a certain period in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The resort has \u201cagreed to these modifications\u201d he told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
The recommended suspension of the certificate now sits with Gov. Eloy S. Inos, after the CDA board adopted a resolution formally stating their position.<\/p>\n
Per the certificate\u2019s terms, Lao Lao Resort has never met the minimum annual public benefit contribution requirements of $100,000 in 2010 until today.<\/p>\n
CDA recommends to Inos two specific actions: the suspension of the resort company\u2019s qualifying certificate from its effective date in 2008 through December 2017 that would result in the company \u201cnot qualifying for any tax relief under the certificate during the suspension period,\u201d and a reduction of their benefit cap from $20 million to $10 million.<\/p>\n
The executive director said the resort was caught in a situation were they were not financially able to meet the QC terms. But he also added that there is this \u201cconfusion out there that [the QC] program is an automatic giveaway.\u2019<\/p>\n
A QC \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean you atomically get that relief,\u201d he said. \u201cThe key there is performance. Under this program, you have to deliver the investment within a specified time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018You have to meet that minimum threshold. If you don\u2019t, you will be in noncompliance forever. You will never get a certificate of compliance\u201d for a tax year showing the amount your company is entitled to, he said.<\/p>\n
In the resort\u2019s case, Sablan said they have deployed their $42-million investment per the QC. \u201cThe deployment of the investment is already there,\u201d he said, adding that this was a case where a company made an investment \u201cthat could otherwise go to Guam\u201d or elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Development Authority\u2019s planned suspension of Lao Lao Bay Golf & Resort\u2019s qualifying certificate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[366,4119,4018,507],"class_list":["post-200081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cda","tag-lao-lao-resort","tag-manuel-sablan","tag-qc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}