Fuel marking boosts tax take to nearly P 100B

Import duties and other taxes collected thanks to fuel marking neared the P100-billion mark last week, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III reported Sunday.

Citing a Bureau of Customs (BOC) report, Dominguez said that from September last year to Aug. 12, 11.19 billion liters of oil products nationwide were already injected with a chemical marker signifying correct tax payments.

Fuel marking ensured the collection of P99.8 billion in taxes from 20 oil firms participating in the program.

The biggest volumes of tax-paid oil to date belonged to Petron (2.6 billion liters or 23.4 percent of total), Shell (2.3 billion liters or 20.5 percent of total) and Unioil (1.2 billion liters or 10.4 percent of total).

Chevron, Era1, Filoil, Goldenshare, High Glory Subic, Insular Oil, Jadelink, Jetti, Marubeni, Micro Dragon, Phoenix, PTT, Seaoil, SL Gas, SL Harbor, Total/Filoil, and Warbucks were the 17 other participants in the fuel marking program.

Of the marked fuel, 6.9 billion liters or 62.4 percent of the total volume were diesel; 4.2 billion liters (37.1 percent) were gasoline; and 56.2 million liters (0.5 percent) were kerosene.

The bulk or 75 percent of the marked oil products were in Luzon, 20 percent in Mindanao and 5 percent were in the Visayas.

The BOC and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) jointly implements the fuel marking project.

Last year, the Department of Finance (DOF) estimated the nationwide volume of oil products to be marked at 15.2 billion liters, with an additional P20 billion in tax revenues expected to be raised this year from the program aimed at stopping smuggling and misdeclaration. —Ben O. de Vera INQ