3 Lucio Tan firms among top 10 taxpayers in RP

San Miguel Corp. emerged as the top corporate taxpayer in 1999 with three companies of business tycoon Lucio Tan among the top 10 taxpayers in the country, records at the Bureau of Internal Revenue show.

SMC the country's biggest food and beverage company, paid taxes (excise, income and VAT) amounting to P12.634 billion.

Tan's firms -- Fortune Tobacco Corp. (fourth) Asia Brewery, Inc. (eighth) and Tanduay Distillers, Inc. (10th) and Asian Alcohol Corp. -- paid taxes totalling P12.775 billion, even surpassing the amount paid by SMC.

BIR records on the taxes paid by other corporations of Tan such as Century Park Hotel. Charter House, Grandspan Development Corp. and Foremost Farms, the country's biggest piggery farm, were still unavailable.

But BIR insiders said that if taxes paid by Tan's conglomerate or group of companies are taken together. Tan will easily emerge as the country's top taxpayer in 1999.

Likewise, of all the country's conglomerates, only the Tan group has three companies in the BIR's top 10 list.

After San Miguel, the other companies in the top 10 and the taxes paid by them are Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., P12.252 billion: Petron Corp., P11.905 billion; Fortune Tobacco Corp., P10.044 billion; La Suerte Cigar & Cigarette Factory, P8.822 billion; Caltex Philippines Inc.; P7.387 billion; La Tondeña Distillers, Inc., P2.338 billion; Asia Brewery Inc., P1.571 billion; Honda Cars Phils Inc., P1.435 billion; and Tanduay Distillers Inc., P741 million.

Of the top 10 taxpayers, three are into fuel oil (Petron, Shell and Caltex), four are into beverage and alcohol (San Miguel, Asia Brewery, La Tondeña and Tanduay Distillers), two are cigarette manufacturers (Fortune Tobacco and La Suerte) and one is in car manufacturing (Honda).