VAT amendments seen to raise Customs collections

The amendments to the value added tax (VAT) law are expected to add P5 billion to P10 billion to the 2005 collections of the Bureau of Customs (BOC).

The BOC said its collections will benefit from the lifting of the exemption of such imported products as oil and petroleum products which are not previously covered by the VAT law.

According to BOC chairman Alberto Lina the bureau had collected a total of P122.47 billion in 2004 and its target for 2005 was P151.18 billion – the highest in the BOC history.

Once the new VAT law is implemented, Lina said the BOC expects to collect as much as P10 billion more to bring the 2005 total to around P161 billion.

Lina said BOC collections would also get some boost from its crackdown on smugglers under its RATS program (Run After The Smugglers), the cousin of the RATE program (Run After Tax Evaders) of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

The BOC announced yesterday that it had filed a complaint against Petroline Resources, a company registered as a customs bonded manufacturing warehouse (CBMW) which is authorized to import tax-free diesel fuel and other raw materials for the manufacture of intermediate fuel oil.

According to Lina, Petroline was also authorized to supply banana boats in Mindanao but official investigations showed that the company had only been importing diesel fuel and not the bunker fuel and additives required in their manufacturing process.

Lina said fuel oil was allowed to enter the country free of import duties because they were considered inputs to export-oriented industries.

According to Lina, the BOC discovered that several BOC personnel at the Port of Davao were also involved in the conspiracy to allow Petroline to withdraw fuel from its warehouse under "questionable circumstances."

"The fuel withdrawn from Petroline’s warehouses purportedly for banana boats in Tagum were never loaded in those boats and were probably sold commercially without paying the proper taxes," he explained.

Named in the complaint were Petroline customs broker Ramesis Diuyan, BOC district collector Aniceto Sanchez, BOC’s chief of customs bonded warehouses division Ebenezer Arellano along with Antonio Michael Plate and Antonio Ordona of the Port of Davao.

Also charged were Allan Niel Ibañez, Petroline warehouseman at Hijo Plantation Port in Tagum, Davao and Roberto Ellivera, BOC conducting guard and other BOC employees involved in smuggling at the Port of Davao.