THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) collected P118 billion in duties and taxes through its fuel marking program in the first half of the year.
In a statement over the weekend, the government’s second biggest collection agency said it marked nine billion liters of fuel from January to June this year under its fuel-marking program, which was aimed to raise revenues while curbing oil smuggling.
Since the program was implemented from September 2019 to June this year under the Duterte administration, 43.65 billion liters of fuel have been marked equivalent to P432.3 billion in duties and taxes.
Diesel cornered the biggest chunk of total volume marked at 60.59 percent, followed by gasoline (38.9 percent) and kerosene (0.51 percent).
Most of the fuel marked came from Luzon at 73.88 percent. Next to Luzon is Mindanao (20.66 percent) and Visayas (5.47 percent).
Meanwhile, the BOC also said they have seized unmarked fuel together with the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
Broken down, among those seized were a total of 111,157.80 liters of diesel, 3,311 liters of kerosene, 18,839 liters of Gasoline and two units of tank trucks carrying unmarked fuel with a total estimated value of P14.4 million.
Tanks of 16 retail stations and four private companies where BOC found these unmarked fuels were likewise sealed and recommended for filing of criminal cases.
Fuel marking makes use of a unique chemical marker that can be embedded at a molecular level in petroleum products—gasoline, diesel, and kerosene—thereby enabling authorities to test, identify and distinguish petroleum products with paid excise taxes.
Earlier, the Department of Finance (DOF) under the Duterte administration thumbed down calls to suspend fuel excise taxes amid the increase in prices, warning that this will slash government revenues by P105.9 billion or 0.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, resulting to a higher deficit and debt for the government.
An increase in deficit and debt, in turn, will potentially raise interest rates on government debt, according to the DOF. This would, thereby, reduce much-needed fiscal space for funding crucial social and economic programs, more so now when the government needs to sustain and even boost the domestic economy’s recovery from the lingering pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict, the finance department added.
The DOF also pointed out that the suspension of fuel excise tax imposition will only largely benefit higher income households, and not the poor, given that the top 10 percent of Filipino households consume about half of the total petroleum products.