One-stop shop for one-person firms launched

The Anti-Red Tape Authority (Arta) launched a one-stop shop for one-person corporations in a bid to streamline business applications in the country.

Arta inaugurated the National Business One-Stop Shop (NBOSS) on Friday, which puts offices of five government agencies in one location.

The agencies are the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the Social Security System (SSS), Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) and the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-Ibig).

The first NBOSS is located at the Philippine International Convention Center.

Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez, who was also a part of the launch, said that other major cities would likely have their own NBOSS, too.

“The intention is to put this in the big cities first where the number [of businesses are] bigger,” he told reporters on the sideline of the launch.

However, an entrepreneur who would like to be a one-person corporation still wouldn’t be able to get all the necessary permits here, for example a mayor’s permit, despite being called a one-stop shop.

Nevertheless, the NBOSS gives entrepreneurs an easier time since they would not have to go to different locations in the case of documents related to the SEC, BIR, SSS, Philhealth and Pag-IBIG.

For now, the NBOSS will only handle applications for one-person corporations.

The NBOSS is to be complemented by the Central Business Portal (CBP), which is being developed by the Department of Information and Communications Technology.

The CBP will serve as a central system to receive applications and capture application data involving business-related transactions and may provide links to the online registration or application systems established by national government agencies.

With the implementation of the NBOSS and CBP, Arta projects that starting a business can be completed in nine steps in seven and a half days, an improvement from 13 steps in 33 days in the 2020 Doing Business Report.