Published
By MYRNA M. VELASCO
As an added reportorial
requirement, the country’s oil industry players are being required by the
Department of Energy (DOE) so submit the names of their customers so the
government will have a way to track their sales and the volumes that are coming
out from their facilities.
According to sources
from the industry, the submission of customer-information is being mandated
starting February this month and shall cover their January sales.
The oil companies though are still taking their grips on the logic of such
requirement, given the voluminous reporting and document-filings already
required from them by the energy department.
As of this writing, the
officials of the DOE have not responded to media queries yet relating to this
newly enforced information-submission from the oil firms.
At the start of this
year, the oil industry just enforced the third tranche of the incremental hike
on excise taxes prescribed under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion
(TRAIN) Act of the Duterte administration.
Energy Secretary
Alfonso G. Cusi just previously cautioned the oil companies that the DOE will
be closely monitoring the compliance of the industry players as to the
implementation of the last batch of increases in excise taxes.
In a related development, there is also a pending plea with relevant government
agencies for the removal of the value-added tax (VAT) portion that had been integrated
into the TRAIN-anchored higher excise taxes.
In particular, consumer
advocacy group Laban Konsyumer, Inc. (LKI) is urging the Bureau of Internal
Revenue (BIR) to render a definitive ruling that will purge the VAT charges in
the higher excise taxes for petroleum products.
With the third tranche
of the adjusted petroleum excise taxes already implemented, the VAT charges
that could be freed from consumers’ pockets will be as much as ₱1.20 per liter
for the ₱10.00 excise tax on gasoline products.
For diesel, the
consumers’ savings from the “no VAT charge” could redound to ₱0.72 per liter
out of the excise tax of ₱6.00 per liter; then ₱0.60 per liter for kerosene
products of the imposed excise tax of ₱5.00 per liter.
On liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which is an essential cooking fuel for
households, this could generate additional ₱0.36 per kilogram savings for
consumers as referenced on the ₱3.00 per kg excise tax for this particular
commodity.
LKI President Victorio
Mario Dimagiba said their group corresponded with the BIR on this plea as early
as February last year, but the tax agency has yet to issue a clear-cut decision
on the matter.
Given what is deemed as
slow pace action on this appeal to the BIR, Dimagiba indicated that they also
endorsed this petition to the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) complaints desk.
“The request for
definitive ruling had been pending for a year,” the LKI president stressed;
while noting that such deprives consumers of any warranted refund of VAT
payments they shelled out for another tax imposition of the government.
By elevating its appeal
to the ARTA, Dimagiba said “we are hoping for swift action to be taken on the
matter at hand.”
This “tax on a tax”
enforcement of the government had doubly punished the pockets of Filipino
consumers since the start of the implementation of the higher TRAIN taxes on
petroleum products in January 2018. “It is the position of LKI that there
should be no separate VAT imposed and collected on the excise taxes on fuel
products,” Dimagiba stressed.
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