The CDA issued Memorandum Circular 2012-08 dated June 15, 2012 temporarily recalling the delegated authority on the registration of primary cooperatives in all Extension Offices (EOs) nationwide for certain types of cooperatives. The move was to address the alarming registration of cooperatives being used for tax shield by some misguided businessmen.
This stemmed from the inter-agency meeting with Department of Finance that several cooperatives are perceived to have been used in violation of the tax incentives and privileges granted by law to cooperatives. Among the types of cooperatives which registration is taken from the extension offices and temporarily transferred to the Central offices are labor service and workers cooperatives, service cooperative among professionals engaged in business for the exercise of profession, cooperatives engaged in small-scale mining, and health service cooperative. The recall enjoins all proponents of said cooperatives to apply directly to the CDA Central Office Registration Division. Moreover, additional requirements have been prescribed to ensure that the proponents are aware and mindful of pertinent regulations of other government agencies involved in regulation.
Cognizant of the significant change in the registration and monitoring procedures of these identified cooperatives, the Authority prescribes the necessary guidelines for the orderly registration and monitoring.
In related development, the Authority called on its key field and technical personnel to craft appropriate guidelines for specific regulation of these types of cooperatives. The Registration Division hosted the activity with Sr. CDS for Registration of all EOs nationwide and selected Legal Officers constitute the participants which was held on June 4-8, 2012 at the Tagaytay International Convention Center (TICC) Resource Persons from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) involved in the regulation of these cooperatives were invited to provide needed inputs vital for the formulation of necessary standards.
The workshop-outputs were submitted to Board of Administrators for policy formulation and eventual implementation before the same is circulated to all EOs for implementation.
