Tax take from marked fuel hits P229.5B, Dominguez says
A total of 23.59 billion liters of oil generated P229.5 billion in revenues as of mid-May under the government’s fuel marking program, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said on Wednesday.
The volume of marked fuel included 12.05 billion liters during the first year of implementation starting September 2019, plus 11.54 billion liters in the current second year running, Dominguez said in a report.
The cumulative import duties and other taxes collected by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) as of last week amounted to P201.58 billion.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), for its part, generated P27.92 billion in excise taxes through the program.
The bulk of fuel products injected with a chemical marker signifying payment of correct taxes were diesel (14.34 billion liters); gasoline (9.13 billion liters); and kerosene (127.92 million liters).
Most of the fuel-marked products were located in Luzon (17.35 billion liters).
Among the 24 oil firms participating in the fuel marking program, the biggest volumes of tax-paid products were those of Petron (5.27 billion liters); Shell (4.63 billion liters); and Unioil (2.45 billion liters).
Last month, the BOC and the BIR started random field and confirmatory testing to ensure that all oil companies complied with fuel marking.
Dominguez last year said the increasing tax revenue collection through the fuel marking program reflected that smuggling was on the decline.
Prior to fuel marking, government estimates had shown foregone revenues from smuggled and misdeclared oil reached over half of actual duties and taxes collected in recent years. —Ben O. de Vera
