The legal counsel of Oilink International Corporation Saturday said the bigger oil firms in the country are given more slack by the Bureau of Customs (BoC) as far as paying taxes for imported fuel products are concerned.

Lawyer Rodolf Britanico claimed the BoC has shown a penchant for clamping down on small oil players upon “mere suspicion” that they are cheating their way out of paying the right taxes.

Britanico cited that in August, 2007 when the BoC issued a Warrant of Seizure and Detention (WSD) on Oilink’s importations since it thought that the company, which serves as petroleum supplier, wrongly declared the quantity of the oil it imported.

BoC officials, upon issuing an assessment and demand letter on the alleged undeclared importations, seized the imported articles on the basis of the WSD and Section 1508 of the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines (TCCP).

In order for Oilink to lift the WSD and Section1508, it paid under protest all the alleged taxes due, which was eight times more than the amount contained in the initial demand letter, Britanico said.

The lawyer accused the BoC of being lenient on the case of major player Pilipinas Shell, which last February was assessed to have payables of P21 billion in back excise taxes for its importations of Catalytic Cracked Gasoline (CCG). Shell alleged that the CCG it imports is used as a “raw material” and mixed with gasoline.

The oil giant’s liability was reduced three-fold to P7 billion last November, Britanico said. The due date of payment on Nov. 23, 2009 came and went without Shell paying a single centavo, he claimed.

“The actions of BoC in Shell’s case have been inconsistent with its previous stand with other small players in the oil industry suspected of evading payment of taxes on their importations. The considerations extended to Shell by the BoC were never extended to small oil players,” Britanico said.

“On the mere suspicion that small players have been evading their obligation to pay taxes, the full force of the BoC is immediately applied to them without giving them an opportunity to refute the rulings of the BoC. On the other hand, every opportunity was given to Shell to refute the assessment made by the BoC,” he alleged.

The lawyer further alleged that Shell was able to negotiate for the delay of the seizure of its products even as the deadline lapsed without the firm paying a single centavo of its obligations.

Last February 5, Customs personnel seized the aromatic hydrocarbon tanks of Unioil Philippines, another minor player. Unioil has said that during the seizure, no WSD or any other document was presented to them at the depot.

The BoC, which only came up with a WSD the next day, said the confiscated products had not been properly declared.