Tax take from marked fuel hits P237 billion

MANILA, Philippines — Taxes and duties collected from the implementation of the fuel marking system reached P236.487 billion as of end-May, the Department of Finance (DOF) said.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said duties and taxes collected by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) from marked fuel amounted to P208.517 billion as of May 27.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), meanwhile, collected a total of P27.97 billion in excise taxes from December 2019 up to May 27.

The taxes were collected from P23.59 billion liters of fuel marked from Sept. 4, 2019 up to May 28.

By type, the bulk of the marked fuel was diesel at 14.786 billion liters followed by gasoline at 9.43 billion liters and kerosene at 131.63 million liters.

Most of the fuel marked by the government so far came from Luzon, making up 73 percent of the total while five percent and 21 percent of the total were in Visayas and Mindanao, respectively.

The fuel marking program is mandated under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law (TRAIN) to curb oil smuggling that may result from the increase in taxes in fuel under the same law.

It is also meant to increase tax collection from locally refined and imported petroleum products.

Under the program, authorities use a chemical marker to identify petroleum products that paid the right taxes.

Under the TRAIN Law, petroleum products found without the official fuel marker or not containing the required level of the marker will be subjected to the payment of duties and taxes, as well as fines and penalties.

Fuel found to be diluted – containing less than 95 percent of the marker level – may also be confiscated.

Agencies implementing the fuel marking program recently formed an agreement on information exchange and reconciliation to intensify efforts at curbing smuggling and misdeclaration of imported petroleum products.

The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on Information Exchange and Reconciliation signed by the Department of Energy with the BIR and BOC formalizes their cooperation on exchange of information and reconciliation of volumes of imported and exported crude oil, finished petroleum products and bioethanol, denatured imported bioethanol and inventory reports.