Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LCC said it will continue to withhold further tax payments to the government, relying on tax credits it reportedly earned in previous years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were advised by our\u2026accountant that we are entitled to tax credits. It\u2019s the same thing like your personal tax wherein if you pay too much you get a refund,\u201d IPI chief executive officer Mark Brown told Saipan Tribune in an interview soon after last week\u2019s meeting of the Commonwealth Casino Commission.<\/p>\n
Brown conceded that the CNMI needs money, the Torres administration is doing its most to keep the government afloat, and Finance Secretary David Atalig has a job to do \u201cbut our accountants and tax lawyers say we paid too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a meeting with the CNMI House Ways and means Committee last month, Department of Finance officials led by Ryan Camacho disclosed that IPI has so far remitted only $41,000 in casino gross revenue tax from October 2018 to April 23, 2019. <\/p>\n
The amount is a just drop compared to IPI\u2019s CGRT payments of $40.9 million in 2016, $67.7 million in 2017, and $43.6 million in 2018. <\/p>\n
Brown said that IPI is trying to make everything work as planned. He said he \u201cgets it\u201d when some people ask, \u2018Why does IPI deserve that?\u2019 He pointed out, though, that events in the past two years have worked against IPI\u2019s plans on Saipan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a half-built building, we are not paying our taxes, we are having all these troubles of getting construction workers,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026But everyone [should] understand that\u2026we would not be in this situation\u201d if IPI had gotten the Marpi land two years ago, \u201cif we didn\u2019t have all the issues with typhoons, construction workers, H-2Bs, and 700 workers that we had to send home.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ultimately, when it comes to tax payments, Brown said the goal is to apply tax credits first. \u201c\u2026Then we will go back to continue paying what\u2019s due,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Despite the many obstacles, Brown said the majority of IPI shareholders still think that investing in a casino on Saipan is still worth it. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy boss thinks anybody else would have ran for their lives and left but not us. \u2026He definitely wants to finish [the] Garapan [site] and move forward with his plans. \u2026He can\u2019t leave now [because] he is in too deep.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still here, finishing the building and we are still getting investors\u2014800 of them at a time\u2014and promoting Saipan in Korea and Australia. \u2026It\u2019s a struggle because we have a lot of people against us but we are still here and we plan to see this through,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LCC said it will continue to withhold further tax payments to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12497],"class_list":["post-300504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300504","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\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}