Fuel prices are nowhere near ‘back to normal,’ in case you’ve lost track. This week alone, we saw yet another sizeable price hike for diesel products. Are there any possible solutions to this seemingly never-ending crisis? Well, there are two House bills pending in Congress right now that could at least help mitigate the impacts.
The first one is House Bill No. 3628 or the ‘Lower Prices and Progressive Petroleum Excise Tax of 2022’ filed by Representative Leody Tarriela on August 15, 2022. HB 3628 seeks to amend Section 43 of Republic Act No. 11469 or the Tax Reform for Acceeleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act and lower the excise taxes on both diesel and gasoline products as pump prices go up.
OTHER STORIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED:
LTO on viral dilapidated truck with valid registration: “Heads will roll”
Quick guide: What types of top boxes should be registered with the LTO?
Under this proposed scheme, the full P10 excise tax on gasoline and P6 excise tax on diesel will only be imposed when pump prices are at P50/L or less. Every P5 increment on per-liter pricing will reduce the excise tax collected by P1 for gas and P0.50 for diesel. The collected taxes will go down to as little as P4 for gasoline and P3 per diesel when pump prices are at P75/L or higher. You can check out the table below for more details:
The second bill is HB 5176 filed by Representative Luis Raymund Villafuerte on September 28, 2022. This bill seeks to amend Section 148 of the National Internal Revenue Code and calls for an automatic suspension of excise taxes on petrol products “when the average Dubai crude oil price based on Means of Platts Singapore (MOPS) for three months prior the scheduled increase of the month reaches or exceeds $80 per barrel.”
At this point, we motorists and consumers just need all the help we can get. *sigh* As of this writing, though, there’s still no word yet whether or not either of these bills will actually be passed. We’ll bring you more as we have them.
