DOE saves billions for consumers with tighter watch on Train oil excise taxes

THE Department of Energy (DOE) saved consumers billions of pesos with its efforts to ensure that the imposition of the new excise tax rates on petroleum products under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) Law in the industry would be fairly and responsibly implemented by all the participants.

The DOE estimates that its actions saved consumers around P2.64 billion for liquid petroleum fuels, and P58.4 million from liq- uid petroleum gas (LPG).

Long before the onset of the Train law’s implementation, the DOE, through its Oil Industry Management Bureau, acted to safeguard consumers’ welfare. These included meeting the industry stakeholders for guidelines, providing advisories to the public, conducting random inspections, data gathering and reviewing the inventory, examining the paper trail, as well as issuing show-cause orders to retail outlets that raised prices before January 15, the projected average period for exhaustion of old inventory.

“We implemented a lot of initiatives for the smooth implementation of Train Law, because we did not want consumers to be compromised. The goal is to protect everyone, especially the consumers,” Secretary Alfonso Cusi said.

The DOE directed oil companies to: 1) submit duly notarized inventory report as of December 31, 2017, on per depot and per product basis for effective monitoring; 2) impose the excise tax under Train only after the products are fully exhausted; 3) submit the daily summary of withdrawal starting January 1, 2018 until the depletion of the declared inventory as of December 31, 2017, supported and 4) advise their retailers to post in a conspicuous area, for transparency, notice of new excise tax implementation under the Train in a signage measuring 1 meter by 1 meter in size.