THE government has marked more than six billion liters of fuel under the fuel marking scheme, the Department of Finance (DOF) said, as part of efforts to plug tax leakages from oil smuggling and other fuel fraud.
Data sent by Carlos Dominguez, DOF secretary, to reporters via Viber last Friday showed that 6.45 billion liters of fuel has been marked from September 2019 to April 2, 2020.
Majority or three-fourths of fuel marked so far by the government is in Luzon, while 20 percent and five percent are in Mindanao and Visayas, respectively.
Participating companies include Petron, Pilipinas Shell, Chevron, Unioil, Seaoil Corp., Phoenix Petroleum, Insular Oil, Total-Filoil, Jetti, PTT, Marubeni, Micro Dragon, Warbucks, High Glory, Filoil Logistics, Goldenshare, ERA1 Petroleum, SL Gas, Jadelink, and SL Harbour.
Dominguez said the fuel marking activities have been exempted from quarantine restrictions.
The DOF earlier said the implementation of the fuel marking scheme has resulted in higher reporting of volumes of fuel, thus the government expects to rake in at least P20 billion more with the program in place.
The fuel marking program is mandated under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law to curb oil smuggling and misdeclaration of petroleum products in the country, and increase revenue collection from taxable imported and locally refined petroleum products.
The program uses an official fuel marker, a unique chemical marker detectable at a molecular level, allowing for authorities to test, identify and distinguish petroleum products with paid excise taxes in the market from those without.
After a three-month “flush-out period,” within which all downstream fuels are expected to have been marked, random field testing shall be conducted by Bureau of Customs, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the fuel marking provider on depots, tank trucks and retail stations to determine the presence and/or dilution level of the fuel marker on petroleum products subject to marking.
Fuels found to be unmarked or with marker levels below the prescribed dilution level shall be immediately subjected to confirmatory testing in an accredited testing facility of the fuel marking provider.
