I'm Giancarlo Enrico S. Pozon, a Wushu instructor, investor and Barrister... That's right, Barrister; I graduated from law school and took the Bar Exams, now I'm waiting for the results. I created this blog to make Philippine Law easy to understand for the average person. It's all about free legal advice. There are many law blogs. But the problem is that many of them are written for lawyers and law students. They use words that can't be understood by ordinary people.
Many lawyers, judges and law students consider themselves as superior to most human beings because of their knowledge of the law. It bothers me since the law is supposed to serve society. Since the law is meant to serve society as a whole, it is important that is must be understood by everybody.
This does not mean that we should all become lawyers. It means that although law is a highly specialized profession, the first duty of everybody in this profession is to make the law understandable to all; that's why all these articles are free legal advice.
Like I said, this blog is about law -but it's for the ordinary people, not the lawyers. It's for the ordinary folk so they will know what is good and bad for them, and that making them aware of the law will help us all improve society as a whole. This is free legal advice for everybody!
Everybody complains why fuel prices just keep going up. The OPEC isn't entirely to blame, you know. There is an excise tax on petroleum products. Excise taxes, whether specific or ad valorem, are imposed together with VAT on a huge number of products.
Sec. 148 of the NIRC imposes specific taxes on petroleum products as follows:
1.) Lubricating oils and grease: Php4.50 per liter or kilo -taxes paid on the bunker/feedstock of the oil is credited to this tax.
2.) Processed gas: Php0.05 per liter
3.) Waxes and petrolatum: Php3.50 per kilo
4.) Denatured alcohol used to fuel moving vehicles: Php0.05 per liter -if mixed with gasoline, the proportion of alcohol will be taxed.
5.) Naptha, regular gasoline and other similar products: P4.80 per liter -Php0.00 if Naptha is used for manufacturing petrochemical products or replacement fuel for natural-gas-fired-combined-cycle power plants.
6.) Leaded premium gasoline: Php5.35 per liter
7.) Unleaded premium gasoline: Php4.35 per liter
8.) Aviation turbo jet fuel: Php3.67 per liter
9.) Kerosene: Php 0.60 per liter
10.) Diesel fuel oil or similar fuel oils with more or less the same power: Php1.63 per liter
11.) LPG: Php0.00 per liter -but if used to fuel vehicles, Php1.63 per liter.
12.) Asphalt: Php0.56 per kilo
13.) Bunker fuel oil or similar fuel oils with more or less the same power: Php0.30 per liter
These taxes are imposed on these products together with VAT. So let's say that if you bought four (4) liters of unleaded gas, you pay Php17.40 in excise tax, the 12% VAT, the 30% corporate income tax from your 4 liters of gas and the import tariffs, ask yourself how much the oil company made from your 4 liters? And everybody complains about the rising oil and gas prices. The government has taken more money than the oil company. Think about it.
3 comments:
I commend your goal of translating legal rhetoric into understandable articles. I found this one particularly informative.
I am wondering where these taxes go. "The government" may take these taxes, but they are generally placed into funds for roads, infrastructure, or debt reduction in the states. I hope to learn more about the government in the Philippines. Where does this money go?
They're supposed to go into running the government and implementing policy. But in practice, most of it doesn't even reach the programs and people who need it. Doesn't it seem suspicious when you notice that a congressman has a Php35,000 monthly salary and an annual Php70-75 Million pork barrel fund. Note: there are more than 200 congressmen. And that's just congressmen. Senators have larger pork barrels.
I think the logic behind the petroleum tax is for environmental consideration. increased tax on petroleum products should go hand-in-hand with incentives to encourage the renewable energy market. given that, then the increased tax on petroleum products will serve as an incentive to lessen dependence on petroleum products so as to reduce our carbon footprints. but yes, you are correct that most of our taxes do not even reach the programs and people who need it.
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