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Bureau of Customs (BOC) has given Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. till
December 10 to pay Ph7.34 billion in back taxes or its future shipments
of a certain type of unleaded fuel will be put on hold.
BOC Commissioner Napoleon Morales said he already signed a
two-page letter to Shell informing the company that its earlier motion
for reconsideration had been denied for lack of merit, and it has to
pay the P7.34 billion in back taxes by December.
“In the light of the foregoing, please be informed that your motion for
reconsideration is denied for lack of merit, and you are hereby ordered
to pay, within 10 days from receipt hereof, the P7,348,767,933.00
[subject to recomputation due to availment of lower specific tax rate
before the effectivity of RA 9337 on 15 July 2009] principal liability
for your shipments covered by the import entries cited in the demand
letters of the District Collector of the Port of Batangas dated 30
January 2009 and 14 September 2009,” Morales said in his letter sent to
Nigel Avila, Shell’s country tax manager.
BOC made the decision to collect from Shell even without a definitive
decision from Department of Finance since it has conflicting issuances
with its sister agency, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR),
on whether catalytic cracked gasoline (CCG) should be slapped with
excise tax. BOC has asked for a DOF ruling on the issue. Based on the
documents from BOC, the agency demanded the additional payment from
Shell, after uncovering discrepancies in the documents filed by the oil
company of at least 64 shipments made between 2004 and 2009.
Batangas Port collector Juan Tan sent a letter dated January 30, 2009,
to Shell country chairman Edgar Chua seeking the payment of P3.61
billion or be slapped with a surcharge of 10 percent or 25 percent and
penalties for alleged misdeclaration. BOC, which has been
authorized to collect these excise taxes and value-added taxes in
behalf of BIR, has arrived at the figure after imposing penalties and
other surcharges.
Shell, however, retaliated and stated that BIR has issued the ATRIG
(Authority to Release Imported Goods) to the said fuel. It then
questioned BOC’s competence on the assessment of the excise taxes and
value-added tax. “BOC cannot legally and validly assess and
collected the said internal revenue taxes simply because it has not
been duly authorized by BIR to make such claim or assessment for the
importation of CCG,” Shell’s Avila argued.
Shell declared that CCG is not a finished product but a blending
component used to produce its finished products for sale to the local
market.
PetrolWorld 281109
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