MANILA (REUTERS) - The Philippines' lower congressional chamber on Monday (Feb 8) passed a Bill imposing taxes on online gambling firms that employ tens of thousands of mainland Chinese workers, as the South-east Asian nation seeks funds to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Online gambling companies, known as Philippine offshore gambling operators (POGOs), offer online betting to customers in mainland China, where gambling is banned.

In 2019, President Rodrigo Duterte rejected China's call to ban such firms, which have fuelled property demand and retail spending in the Philippines since 2016, saying the South-East Asian nation needed the jobs and fees they generated.

Lawmakers in the Lower House approved on third and final reading a measure Congressman Joey Salceda, one of the Bill's authors, said in a statement would generate 144 billion pesos (S$3.99 billion) in taxes.

The Upper Chamber has yet to pass the counterpart Bill. Both chambers will have to reconcile the Bills before seeking Mr Duterte's signature.

Under the proposal, offshore gambling licence holders would pay 5 per cent tax on gross gaming receipts and revenues from other services.

It would also impose a 25 per cent tax on gross annual income of foreign employees.

Service providers would be subject to regular corporate income and applicable local taxes.

The Philippine gaming regulator collected 19 billion pesos in fees from online gambling firms from 2016 to 2019, but lawmakers said POGOs and service providers failed to pay around US$1.7 billion (S$2.27 billion) in taxes from 2018 and 2019.

A crackdown on erring firms, tighter implementation of tax rules and a travel ban on thousands of mainland Chinese workers prompted some online gambling firms to close shop last year.

In 2020, POGOs vacated 277,000 square metres of office space, equivalent to more than 25 soccer pitches, data from a property consultancy firm showed.