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The government as of Feb. 10 collected a cumulative P367.3 billion in import duties and other taxes from compliant oil companies under the fuel marking program.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III on Monday said these oil taxes collected by the Bureaus of Customs (BOC) and Internal Revenue (BIR) came on the back of 36.7 billion liters of tax-paid fuel products injected with a chemical marker to signify correct payments since September 2019.
The BOC’s tariff collections—the Philippines is an oil importer —accounted for the bulk amounting to P337.4 billion as of last week. The BIR’s excise tax take from local oil refiners reached P29.8 billion as of October 2021.
Petron
Diesel cornered the largest chunk of tax-paid oil volume with 22.3 billion liters to date; followed by gasoline, 14.2 billion; and kerosene, 193.1 million.
Among the 27 firms currently participating in the fuel marking program, the highest volumes belonged to Petron (8.9 billion liters), Shell (6.6 billion), Unioil (3.8 billion), Insular Oil (3.1 billion), Seaoil (2.9 billion), Phoenix (2.6 billion), Chevron (2.3 billion), Filoil (1.4 billion), and Jetti (1.1 billion).
Oil smuggling
Fuel marking was aimed at curbing oil smuggling, which flourished in the past and resulted in foregone government revenues estimated at over half of the actual duties and taxes generated by the BOC and the BIR yearly, or about P27 billion to P44 billion before the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act took effect in 2018.
Since April of last year, the BOC and the BIR have conducted random field and confirmatory testing to ensure that oil traders complied with fuel marking.
In 2020, the country’s two biggest tax-collection agencies were granted with deputization and police authority during field testing. When they find adulterated, diluted or unmarked petroleum, revenue officers can not only seize these products but also arrest unscrupulous traders.
The BOC leads fuel marking in depots, tank trucks, vessels, warehouses, and other fuel-transporting vehicles. The BIR oversees testing in refineries, their attached depots, gasoline stations, and other retail outlets.