Phoenix Petroleum backs plan to hike oil excise tax

Phoenix Petroleum Philippines Inc. has thrown its support behind government’s plan to impose higher oil excise tax, which forms part of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) pending approval in Congress.

The company is willing to pay taxes in advance to support the government’s proposed tax reform program, its president and CEO Dennis Uy said.

“We support the administration’s plan on tax reforms,” he said. “One of the ways we can support the government’s revenue-generating efforts is to prepay the excise taxes for imported fuel and petroleum products for a period.”

The Department of Finance (DOF) has endorsed House Bill 4774, authored by Rep. Dakila Carlo Cua, which covers the first package of its tax reform plan.

The proposed tax reform program is seen to increase government revenues, improve the business environment and sustain economic growth.

Under the bill, tax adjustments would be staggered both for diesel and gasoline and other petroleum products from 2017 to 2019 and would be indexed by four percent starting 2020 to account for inflation.

The bill also calls for the adoption of fuel marking system as part of the legislated administrative reforms in the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs (BOC).

The proposal aims to securely and covertly authenticate petroleum products, prevent oil smuggling, and improve collection efforts of the BIR and the BOC.

Part of the measures to ensure this is with the use of e-receipts and the mandatory link of the point-of-sale (POS) systems of establishments directly to the BIR.