by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - Days before a public hearing is set to take place on legislation aimed at forcing organizations that provide gaming activities in Guam to pay their fair share in taxes, Senator Chris Duenas has sent a letter to the Public Auditor requesting an audit to see the full impact of Bill 19. Duenas wrote to Doris Flores Brooks requesting an audit of the Guam National Olympic Committee lottery to determine the impact of the legislation.

"We wanted to at least start with this and see if we can get a baseline on it our figures are accurate as per our work in investigating that bill up at Rev & Tax," he said.

Bill 19, introduced two weeks ago, allows the director of Rev & Tax to take on the responsibilities of the Gaming Control Commission - a commission that has been dormant for over a decade. The bill also notes the DRT director will be authorized to assess an interim 20 percent tax on all gross receipts from all gaming activities in Guam that don't have a specific tax rate. Duenas had stated that it's about time organizations that are licensed to provide gaming activities pay their fair share.

He specifically referred to the GNOC in which if the bill is enacted he estimates they could be paying up to one million a year in taxes. "So we're going on what we were able to view and as we were writing the law 2031 as we read the law and what we reviewed up at the Department of Revenue & Taxation. That's how we derived some of our numbers," he said.

Duenas says the audit will help gauge what the impact is on the GNOC as well the true potential of the funding source to the overall athletic community on Guam. He says accurate numbers are needed to ensure all information is correct as the bill evolves into final legislation. The GNOC meanwhile has since called on the support of the community in its opposition of Bill 19, saying the 20 percent tax has the potential to kill the GNOC's funding source, which offsets a lot of the costs to send athletes to all the different events Team Guam participates in, like the Pacific Games and the Olympics.

GNOC's Bob Steffy meanwhile told KUAM News that the information Duenas is putting out is inaccurate, calling Duenas's estimates of what the GNOC could be paying out is " fiscally impossible". He's not sure why the GNOC is being singled out as Bill 19 affects all non-profit organizations that uses bingo or raffles to raise funds.

Duenas responds however that the figures were derived from the compliance at Rev & Tax of reports from Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 through preliminary research by his staff in writing the bill. He looks forward to see what the audit says and wants to work closely with Steffy and the other non-profits to move the bill forward.

"We look forward to the public hearing this Friday, we look forward to the audit and this should sort everything out. We're not picking on anyone, we just want to make sure that all the athletes organizations and the people of Guam derived the income that's supposed to be prescribed by law," he said.

The public hearing on Bill 19 is set for Friday at 9am at the Guam Legislature Public Hearing Room.