GREATER transparency in terms of the government’s fuel-marking program between the Department of Energy (DOE), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC) would improve the country’s chances of eradicating smuggling and the misdeclaration of petroleum products.
In the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the three agencies, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the agreement will provide a vital mechanism to strengthen the implementation of the country’s first nationwide Fuel Marking Program.
Through the MOA, Dominguez said information and reports on the volumes of imported and exported oil products among the three government agencies will be reconciled.
“Through this program, we expect smuggling and misdeclaration of petroleum products to be greatly reduced, if not totally eradicated, and revenue collections to dramatically increase,” Dominguez said in his speech last Thursday. “Fuel marking will also ensure fair competition among oil companies.”
The DOF said the MOA formalizes the partnership of the DOE, BOC and BIR in running after oil smugglers with their commitment to exchange information and reconcile the volumes of imported and exported crude oil, finished petroleum products and bioethanol, denatured imported bioethanol and inventory reports.
Dominguez said the importance of the MOA “cannot be understated” as its deliverables are designed to support the work of a joint task force set up by the BOC and BIR to perform the field testing activities under the fuel-marking program.
He also said this will help the government raise additional revenues that are needed to help the economy recover faster. As such, the fuel-marking program is among the key provisions of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) Law, which is the first package of the Duterte administration’s Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP).
“Having gone through the ravages of a pandemic and funding our nation’s economic recovery, the government needs all the revenue it can muster. Properly collecting all taxes due from the oil industry is indispensable to this effort,” Dominguez said.
“This will help us surmount the global health emergency and bring the country back to the path of inclusive growth. A better future for our people depends on this,” he added.
As of May 13 of this year, the government has collected a total of P229.5 billion in taxes from 23.59 billion liters of fuel marked under the program that was launched last September 4, 2019.
Of the total amount, the BOC accounted for P201.58 billion of the tax haul, while the BIR collected another P27.92 billion.
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