EVEN with the assurance from the Bureau of Customs to refund the tax levied on Jujeath Nagaowa?s championship belt, their camp will no longer pursue the reimbursement.
Nagaowa?s manager Brico Santig of the Highland Boxing Gym, in a report by Fightnews Asia, said the refund is no longer a priority.
“It was just a casual post on Facebook by her friend and it got a lot of attention probably because of the issues surrounding BOC recently. Refund was not her top agenda,” said Santig according to Fightnews Asia.
Nagaowa bagged the vacant WIBA lightflyweight title following a 10-round unanimous decision win over Chinese foe Luo Yu Jie at the Forum de Macau on June 6 in Macau, China.
The championship belt, however, did not arrive in time for the fight night but WIBA and the Macau promoter promised to send the belt to the Philippines as soon as it arrives from Florida, USA.
But instead of receiving accolades from government for bringing honor to the country, Nagaowa got a computation from the BoC telling her that her championship belt had a dutiable value of P20,147.77 of which the customs duty was P3,027.13 and the value added tax was P2,782.
Santig said the case of Nagaowa is not the first since they had been paying customs tax and duties for the belts given to his boxers adding, ?We are not aware of the exemptions, if there?s any, we were not informed about it.?
The boxing manager said he is looking forward to the waiving of travel tax to professional athletes, particularly boxers.
?Our pro boxers don?t have such kind of arrangement. They might say, unlike the amateurs, the professional athletes get paid for their events. Yes, but unlike the national athletes, our pro boxers don?t have allowances and per diem, they don?t get bonuses from the government and other sponsors. In the case of our pro boxers, some go out of the country to fight for eight rounds or 10, so they don?t really get that much. Yung pambayad nila sana ng travel tax ay malaking savings na for them,? Santig said.
