Total actual excise tax collections for January 2018 reached P22.078 billion, or over 7.7 percent of the goal of P20.501 billion for that month and 81.69 percent higher compared to the P12.152 billion tax take in the same period last year, according to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

In a report during a recent Executive Committee (Execom) meeting of the Department of Finance (DOF), BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay said the bureau has collected a total of P12.139 billion excise taxes from tobacco firms in January 2018, exceeding by 52.8 percent the target of P7.944 billion for the month.

Dulay said tobacco excise collections during the entire one-month period were also 95.91 percent or P5.942 billion higher compared to the tax take of P6.196 billion recorded in the same period last year.

Excise tax collections from automobiles reached P443.34 millon, or 29.42 percent in excess of the the target for the month of P342.561 million and 113.13 percent higher than last year’s collections for the same period amounting to P208.010 million.

Meanwhile, tax collections from sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) amounted to P2.5 billion in the same period.

Of this amount, collections from Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines Inc. amounted to P1.186 billion, followed by Pepsi Cola Philippines Inc., P666 million; ARC Refreshments Corp., P293.015 million; Nestle Philippines Inc., P143.5 million; Inter Beverages Philippines, P112 million; Asia Brewery Inc., P18 million; Liwayway Marketing, P16.049 million; SMB Inc. P10.726 million; and Zesto Corp., P7 million.

Earlier, BIR officials said local cigarette manufacturer Mighty Corp. has paid P4 billion more in monthly taxes since global firm Japan Tobacco Inc. (JTI) took it over in 2017.

Data showed that compared to the same period in the previous year, cigarettes bearing the brands sold by Mighty yielded roughly P4 billion more in monthly excise taxes over the September-December 2017 period, or when JTI fully took over the operations of the company.

Dulay said this increase in excise tax payments on Mighty brands totaling P20.22 billion from September to December 2017 represented a 262-percent improvement or P14.65 billion more from the collection of P5.57 billion for the same period in 2016, when Mighty was still controlled by its previous owners.

The BIR chief said total excise tax collections for September to December 2017 amounted to P71.24 billion or a 26.68-percent hike over the collections in 2016 of P56.24 billion.

Excise tax collections from the tobacco industry comprised 57.4 percent of the total excise tax collections for September to December 2017, contributing P40.91 billion that year, Dulay said.

“What stands out there is the Mighty-JTI improvement in collections as they represented 262-percent improvement from September to December,” Dulay had said.

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