DIAZ VS. SECRETARY OF FINANCE- Value Added Tax (VAT)

May toll fees collected by tollway operators be subject to VAT?

YES.

(1) VAT is imposed on “all kinds of services” and tollway operators who are engaged in constructing, maintaining, and operating expressways are no different from lessors of property, transportation contractors, etc.

(2) Not only do they fall under the broad term under (1) but also come under those described as “all other franchise grantees” which is not confined only to legislative franchise grantees since the law does not distinguish. They are also not a franchise grantee under Section 119 which would have made them subject to percentage tax and not VAT.

(3) Neither are the services part of the enumeration under Section 109 on VAT-exempt transactions.

(4) The toll fee is not a user’s tax and thus it is permissible to impose a VAT on the said fee. The MIAA case does not apply and the Court emphasized that toll fees are not taxes since they are not assessed by the BIR and do not go the general coffers of the government. Toll fees are collected by private operators as reimbursement for their costs and expenses with a view to a profit while taxes are imposed by the government as an attribute of its sovereignty. Even if the toll fees were treated as user’s tax, the VAT can not be deemed as a ‘tax on tax’ since the VAT is imposed on the tollway operator and the fact that it might pass-on the same to the tollway user, it will not make the latter directly liable for VAT since the shifted VAT simply becomes part of the cost to use the tollways.

(5) The assertion that the VAT imposed is not administratively feasible given the manner by which the BIR intends to implement the VAT (i.e., rounding off the toll rates and putting any excess collection in an escrow account) is not enough to invalidate the law. Non-observance of the canon of administrative feasibility will not render a tax imposition invalid “except to the extent that specific constitutional or statutory limitations are impaired”.