Marked tax-paid fuel breached 10 billion liters in mid-July

MANILA, Philippines — The government has collected excise taxes and import duties from over 10 billion liters of oil products as of mid-July through the fuel marking program.

The latest data provided by Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III showed 10.07 billion liters of fuel were marked — injected with chemicals signifying tax compliance — from September last year up to July 18.

Twenty oil companies regularly participated in fuel marking, with the largest volumes of tax-paid oil products belonging to Petron (2.4 billion liters or 23.9 percent of total), Shell (2.1 billion liters or 20.6 percent of total), and Unioil (1.1 billion liters or 10.4 percent of total).

The 17 other firms were Seaoil, Chevron, Phoenix, Insular Oil, Total/Filoil, Jetti, PTT, Marubeni, Micro Dragon, Filoil, High Glory Subic, Warbucks, Goldenshare, Era1, SL Harbor, SL Gas, and Jadelink.

Of the marked fuel to date, 75 percent were in Luzon, 20 percent in Mindanao, and the remaining 5 percent in Visayas.

Even at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, the bureaus of Customs (BOC) and of Internal Revenue (BIR) continued fuel marking as the program had been exempted from the quarantine restrictions on movement of goods and people.

The BOC marked oil in depots, tank trucks, vessels, warehouses, and fuel-transporting vehicles; the BIR tested in refineries and their attached depots, gasoline stations, and retail outlets.

The country’s two biggest tax-collection agencies have deputization and police authority during field testing so they can seize adulterated, diluted or unmarked petroleum as well as arrest unscrupulous traders.

The ready-to-use official marker was being churned out by the joint venture of SGS Philippines Inc. and Switzerland-based SICPA SA, which also conducted actual marking of all taxable oil products.

The government shouldered the fuel marking cost of P0.06884 per liter during its first year of implementation as mandated under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law.

Department of Finance officials had estimated the nationwide volume of oil products needed to be marked totaling 15.2 billion liters, with an additional P20 billion in tax revenues targeted to be raised from the program this year as it prevented smuggling and misdeclaration.

Government estimates have shown foregone revenues from smuggled and misdeclared fuel products reached P26.9 billion in 2016, over half of the P52.6 billion in import duties and excise taxes actually collected by the BOC and the BIR from taxable oil that year.

EDV