Marked tax-paid fuel breached 14-B liter mark

MANILA, Philippines — The volume of marked tax-paid fuel breached the 14-billion liter mark in mid-October, ensuring correct tax payments from oil firms to offset weak government revenues amid the COVID-19-induced recession.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III on Monday said the volume of oil products injected with a chemical marker signifying payments of import duties and excise taxes totaled 14.04 billion liters from September last year up to Oct. 15.

To date, the country’s two biggest tax-collection agencies generated a combined P143.31 billion — P124.07 billion in duties and taxes collected by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) on top of P19.24 billion by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), thanks to fuel marking.

To date, 8.69 billion liters of diesel, 5.28 billion liters of gasoline, and 73.98 million liters of kerosene were marked.

Almost three-fourths of these marked fuel or 10.42 billion liters were located in Luzon; 2.94 billion liters in Mindanao; and 684.6 million in the Visayas.

Among the 20 oil companies participating in the fuel marking program, the biggest volumes of tax-paid oil products belonged to Petron (3.18 billion liters); Shell (2.81 billion liters); Unioil (1.48 billion liters); Seaoil (1.23 billion liters); Chevron (1.21 billion liters); and Phoenix (1.02 billion liters).

Since September, the government also collected P0.06884 per liter, inclusive of value-added tax (VAT), in fuel marking fees on top of the excise and duties paid for oil products after the one-year free coverage lapsed.

Fuel marking had been included in the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law as a tax administration measure aimed at eliminating oil smuggling and misdeclaration.

Earlier government estimates had shown foregone revenues from smuggled and misdeclared oil products reached over half of actual duties and taxes collected in recent years.

JPV