Gov’t nets P 192.76B in taxes from fuel marking program

Fuel marking has allowed the government to collect import duties and excise taxes amounting to P192.76 billion from tax-paid oil as of mid-February, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said on Monday.

These taxes came from a total of 19.9 billion liters of petroleum products that had been injected with a chemical marker signifying correct payments under the fuel marking program, which started in September 2019.

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) collected a cumulative P166.18 billion in duties and taxes from imported oil as of Feb. 17.

The fuel excise tax take of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), meanwhile, reached P26.58 billion as of Feb. 11.

In terms of volume of marked tax-paid oil products, Petron had the biggest with 4.51 billion liters, followed by Shell’s 3.94 billion liters, Unioil’s 2.08 billion liters, Seaoil’s 1.67 billion liters, Chevron’s 1.48 billion liters, Phoenix’s 1.47 billion liters and Insular Oil’s 1.45 billion liters. In all, 22 oil firms are participating in the fuel marking program.

Random field testing

Early this month, the BOC and the BIR started random field testing to supplement fuel marking under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law.

Joint Circular No. 1-2021 issued by Dominguez, Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero and Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar Dulay on Feb. 1 contained the guidelines for the field and confirmatory testing on diesel, gasoline and kerosene.

Dominguez said the government “trusts but verifies” oil traders’ tax payments.

During the first full year of the fuel marking program, the government collected a total of P126.51 billion in import duties and excise taxes. The BOC’s duty and tax take amounted to P107.77 billion from September 2019 until Sept. 3 2020, while the Bureau of Internal Revenue collected P18.74 billion in excise taxes from December 2019 to Aug. 20 last year.

The collection of these taxes came from the 12.05 billion liters of oil products that were marked by the government from September 2019 to Aug. 27, 2020.

In terms of volume, the bulk of marked fuel during the first year were diesel at 7.48 billion liters (62.05 percent of the total); gasoline, 4.51 billion liters (37.43 percent), and kerosene, 61.96 million liters (0.51 percent). Per geographical location of marked fuel, Luzon cornered 75 percent (9.02 billion liters), Mindanao accounted for 20 percent (2.41 billion liters) and the Visayas, the remaining 5 percent (615.73 million liters). INQ