Smart moves to address tax issues, submits required documents to Makati City gov’t

Smart Communications Inc., wireless unit of the PLDT Group., said it had submitted to the Makati City government the required documents to settle its taxation issues that led to the shutdown of its headquarters in the city’s central business district.

“The submission of the documents is part of ongoing discussions between the company and the Makati City LGU (local government unit) who both aim to arrive at a resolution to the matter at hand,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

On Monday, the LGU padlocked Smart’s office due to unpaid taxes amounting to P3.2 billion covering the period January 2012 to December 2015.

Operations were ordered to cease until the company complied with the violated city ordinance concerning tax collections.

The PLDT unit said it had “filed the appropriate cases to resolve outstanding legal issues; these cases remain pending.”

The company said their legal and tax team were also coordinating with the Makati LGU  to settle the issue at hand.

Smart has  assured the public that its services would “remain available and accessible to our subscribers.”

This was the second major issue faced by the PLDT group  in less than three months.

Prior to this tax issue, PLDT has dealt with a major financial fiasco involving a P48-billion budget run, which had been accumulated for four years but was only uncovered in December last year.

The listed telco player previously said it had incurred billions-worth of budget overrun due to “over orders” related to rollout of 5G and wireless services, among others, stressing that its initial probe showed no signs of fraud.

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Makati padlocks Smart HQ over unpaid taxes worth P3.2 billion