SEC renews call for companies to seek amnesty by Dec. 31
THE Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has called on companies to avail of the regulator’s amnesty program less than three weeks before the Dec. 31 deadline to avoid hefty fines.
In a statement on Tuesday, the SEC said that failure to seek amnesty would subject noncompliant and suspended, or revoked corporations to a new scale of fines that would be implemented starting Jan. 1 next year.
Launched in March, the SEC’s amnesty program allows erring corporations to pay a reduced penalty for the late and nonfiling of their general information sheet (GIS), annual financial statement (AFS), and official contact details mandated under Memorandum Circular No. 28 series of 2020.
Under the SEC’s amnesty program, noncompliant corporations would pay a P5,000 fixed amnesty rate regardless of the number of reports and number of years that they failed to submit their reports, while suspended and revoked corporations would only pay 50% of their total assessed fines on top of a P3,060 petition fee.
Starting Jan. 1 next year, domestic stock corporations with retained earnings of less than P100,000 and domestic nonstock corporations with a fund balance or equity of less than P100,000 would incur a basic penalty of P5,000 for the first offense for the late filing of their GIS or AFS, which would increase to P9,000 when the corporations reach the fifth offense. An additional P1,000 would also be imposed for every month of continuing violation.
The SEC would also double the penalty for non-compliance to P20,000 from P10,000.
In October, the SEC issued two separate lists totaling over 320,000 ordinary corporations that were encouraged to apply for the amnesty program for their failure to submit their GIS within five years from the date of incorporation or failure to submit their GIS for three times consecutively or intermittently within five years.
“Such corporations are encouraged to avail of the amnesty program to avoid getting their corporate registrations revoked or getting tagged as delinquent. Availing of the amnesty will also allow them to continue enjoying the benefits and privileges of being a registered business in the Philippines,” the SEC said.
Meanwhile, the SEC said it would “strictly enforce” the submission of reportorial requirements and implement the corresponding monetary policies, placement of corporations under delinquency status, and suspension and revocation of a corporation’s certificate of incorporation in accordance with Republic Act No. 11232 or the Revised Corporation Code, once the new scale of fines is implemented. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
