The Finance Department said excise tax payments of cigarette manufacturers increased 8 percent in 2019 to P147.5 billion, accounting for more than half of the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s total six tax collection.
Data from the DOF showed the full-year excise taxes paid by cigarette manufacturers represented 54.77 percent of the BIR’s P269.1-billion collection from the so-called “sin” products and equivalent to 6.76 percent of the agency’s P2.18-trillion revenues last yer.
Sin tax revenues from alcoholic beverages, which accounted for 29.61 percent, rose 12.1 percent in 2019 to P79.7 billion from P71.1 billion in 2018.
The agency collected P42 billion from sugar-sweetened beverages, up by 10.52 percent from P38 billion in 2018.
It said revenues from sin products, including sweetened beverages, almost doubled between 2015 and 2019 from P143 billion to P269.1 billion.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said sin tax collections accelerated because the Duterte administration, “is the first government to have pushed more than one ‘sin’ tax hike bill in the Congress during its term.”
The DOF expects revenues from sin taxes, particularly cigarettes, to further rise to P332.2 billion this year following the introduction of new levies on heated tobacco and vapor products and the further increases in taxes on alcohol and tobacco.
Based on the conservative DOF estimates, the government would raise about P480 billion in sin taxes by 2024.
The DOF expects revenues from heated tobacco and vapor products to reach P14.9 billion this year and P125.8 billion by 2024. Darwin G. Amojelar
President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law Republic Act No. 11467, which further increased excise taxes on alcohol, heated tobacco and vapor products. This is expected to raise an initial P22.2 billion this year.
The DOF said that over a five-year period from 2020 to 2024, revenues would reach P137.2 billion from the newly enacted law.