The next big task of the new Philippine interagency task force will be to tally up foreign workers for tax purposes. This news comes from the Department of Finance (DOF), who announced the new goal in an article on their official site.

Specifically, the task force will be looking at Philippine offshore gaming operations (POGOs), where they suspect foreigners might be evading a total of P22 billion ($420 million USD) in yearly income taxes. Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said:

“There are still gaps in the numbers and we need to close those gaps. In our computations, there is at least P22 billion a year not being collected in the income taxes from these POGO workers who could possibly exceed 100,000 in number.”

To reduce that number of tax evaders, they plan to make a comprehensive list of all foreign workers currently employed by POGOs. “We have to get a clear picture here,” Dominguez said. “If we do not have that, how can the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) do its job, which is to collect taxes from everybody so that we are being fair to all Filipinos who are paying their taxes?”