MANILA - Exempting small-scale miners from paying income and excise taxes resulted in around 1,000 percent jump in Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas' (BSP) gold purchases in 2020 and more refinements are still in the pipeline to support this. In a virtual briefing on Friday, BSP Mint and Refinery Operations Department Director Joseph Norbert S. David said Republic Act (RA) 11256, or the amendment in the National Internal Revenue Code, which was signed into law on March 29, 2019 "has a positive impact on our purchases". "The BSP was able to buy a total volume of 115,800 troy ounces as compared to the 10,207 troy ounces in 2019. It is also worthy to mention that the current volume of the purchases this year has already exceeded that of last year's purchases," he said. He, however, declined to give the figures for their gold purchases so far this year, citing that there are certain protocols before this can be disclosed to the public. In general, he said most of thei