BPO firms among top corporate taxpayers

MANILA, Philippines - A wholly-owned subsidiary of Germany-based Deutsche Bank AG and Accenture Inc. have emerged as the new top corporate taxpayers in the country’s business process outsourcing (BPO) sector, House deputy majority leader and Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo said yesterday.

Romulo, a strong backer of the BPO sector in Congress, said Deutsche Knowledge Services Pte. Ltd. ranked as the BPO industry’s No. 1 taxpayer, and No. 195 among all Philippine corporate taxpayers with P116.88 million in income tax paid,

Accenture ranked as the industry’s No. 2 taxpayer, and No. 285 among all Philippine corporate taxpayers, with P75.25 million in income tax paid, he said.

Romulo said the rankings were based on the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s new list of the country’s top 500 non-individual taxpayers for taxable year 2011, which in turn was based on income tax returns filed. The list was made public in April.

“We are crediting all BPO firms and the back offices here of large global corporations not only for gainfully employing thousands of young Filipinos and driving national economic production of high-value services, but also for their significant contributions to the National Treasury,” Romulo said.

He said Deutsche Knowledge Services provides a wide variety of global business support services to the Deutsche Bank Group which operates in 72 countries.

Based at The Enterprise Center in Makati City, Deutsche Knowledge Services employs more than 2,300 Filipinos, and last reported P6.419 billion in revenues in 2011.

Accenture is the Philippine subsidiary of Ireland-based Accenture Plc., an independent worldwide provider of management consulting, technology, and BPO services.

With over 25,000 personnel in 13 delivery centers in the Philippines, Accenture last reported P22.256 billion in revenues in 2011, Romulo said.

The other BPO firms and back offices in the country’s top 500 corporate taxpayers are: Sykes Asia Inc. (No. 343, tax paid at P61.91 million); Hewlett-Packard Asia-Pacific (Hong Kong) Ltd.-Regional Operating Headquarters (No. 354, P60.53 million); Citibank N.A.-Regional Operating Headquarters (No. 408, P49.37 million); and NCR Cebu Development Center Inc. (No. 465, P42.96 million).