Carlos G. Dominguez
Secretary of Finance
Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi; Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko; Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero of the Bureau of Customs; Commissioner Caesar Dulay of the Bureau of Internal Revenue; fellow workers in government; distinguished guests: Good afternoon.
Thank you for your presence in this signing ceremony for a Memorandum of Agreement on Information Exchange and Reconciliation to fight oil smuggling between the Department of Energy, the Bureau of Customs, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
This Memorandum of Agreement will provide us a vital mechanism to strengthen the implementation of our first-ever nationwide Fuel Marking Program.
Taxes on fuel are big sources of revenue for the government. In the past, it was also vulnerable to tax evasion. With the enactment of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law, we adopted the Fuel Marking Program to properly keep track of this highly taxable product through the various stages of refining and distribution.
Through this program, we expect smuggling and misdeclaration of petroleum products to be greatly reduced, if not totally eradicated, and revenue collections to dramatically increase. Fuel marking will also ensure fair competition among oil companies.
The Agreement to be signed today will boost the efficiency of implementing the program by reconciling all information and reports on the volumes of imported and exported oil products among the three government agencies. This will enhance the system and will help the government assess the proper taxes for these products.
The importance of this Agreement cannot be understated. Its deliverables will support the work of a joint task force set up by the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue to perform the field testing activities.
Having gone through the ravages of a pandemic and funding our nation’s economic recovery, the government needs all the revenue it can muster. Properly collecting all taxes due from the oil industry is indispensable to this effort. This will help us surmount the global health emergency and bring the country back to the path of inclusive growth. A better future for our people depends on this.
I trust that the agencies involved in this initiative will be up to the task of making our Fuel Marking Program an effective instrument to put an end to oil smuggling and be a model for other countries to follow.
Thank you.
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