P83-M beer rebate?

Which maker of a well-loved light beer just won back more than P83 million from the taxman? Nosy Tarsee wants all and sundry to take a guess. Here is a hint: it had to wait almost 12 years, and not all of the delay was the government’s doing.

The story begins in late 2012, when Congress raised the taxes on beer. The law was clear. Cheaper beer would pay P15 a liter, and pricier beer would pay P20. Our mystery brand sold at P47.99 a liter in bottles and P61.51 in cans, so it fell into different brackets.

Days later, the tax bureau issued a memo setting one rate of P20.57 a liter for the brand. That was higher than what the law allowed, and the Supreme Court has now voided the memo. On this point, the bureau was plainly wrong.

But look closer at the brewer’s side. It paid the extra tax all through 2013 and filed its refund claim only in December 2014, near the end of the window. When the bureau did not respond, the brewer filed incorrectly, and the tax court threw out the case. That misstep cost years before the case was heard on the merits.

Then there is the matter of the numbers. The tax court found that the brewer had underdeclared 39.60 liters of beer removed from its plants in 2013, and it trimmed the refund by P792. The amount is small, and the company’s returns did not match its own papers.

The biggest question, though, is who bore the cost. An excise tax is built into the price of beer. If the extra tax was passed on to drinkers in 2013, then the brewer is getting back money that customers may have paid. The ruling covers only the brewer’s claim. It says nothing about the people at the other end of the bar.

Will the refund be in cash or a tax credit certificate? Will any of it find its way back to consumers? Will the brewer file claims for other years the memo was in force?

The taxman lost his claim, but drinkers seem to have no chance of a beer refund.