BIR seen filing more tax-evasion cases estimated at P30B against Mighty Corp.
April 11, 2017 at 10:19
BIR seen filing more tax-evasion cases estimated at P30B against Mighty Corp.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will file more complaints at the Department of Justice (DOJ) against local cigarette company Mighty Corp. for the cigarette products bearing fake-tax stamps found in several of its warehouses across the country, according to the Department of Finance (DOF).
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the BIR had filed the first of an expected four or five complaints against Mighty for possession of fake cigarette stamps and untaxed cigarette products.
The BIR filed at the DOJ last month a tax-evasion case worth P9.56 billion for the Mighty cigarettes with fake tax stamps found in the company’s warehouses in Pampanga.
“We filed a case in one warehouse, where [Mighty] owes us P9 billion. We haven’t filed the cases in the other three warehouses. In every warehouse we raided, 90 percent of the stamps are unpaid,” Dominguez said.
The raids conducted by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the BIR in the company’s warehouses in Zamboanga, General Santos City, Cebu, Tacloban City and Bulacan also yielded fake tax stamps on cigarette products. The use of fake tax stamps was uncovered during a series of surprise BOC inspections on warehouses belonging to Mighty Corp.
Last week Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay said an estimated P27 billion to P30 billion tax-evasion cases can be filed against Mighty Corp. for the raid done in its warehouses in Bulacan alone, which yielded an estimated P2.4 billion in unpaid taxes.
“We’re building up solid cases, that’s our job, so we have to do it. For example, the Bulacan raid yielded three times bigger than the Pampanga warehouse raid. We’re looking at around P27 billion to P30 billion in tax-evasion cases,” Dulay said.
According to the BOC, the raided Bulacan warehouses resulted to the seizure of 160,000 master cases of Mighty cigarettes bearing fake tax stamps, the first warehouse contained 145,000 master cases with an estimated value of P2.9 billion, while the second warehouse had 15,000 master cases worth an estimated P300 million.
He added the company’s license to operate may be canceled due to numerous violations of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997. “Yeah, because there’s a violation of
the Tax Code, we’re also looking into that,” he added.
Meanwhile, customs operatives confiscated 644 boxes of cigarettes manufactured by Mighty Corp. that were suspected of bearing fake stamps in two separate operations last Friday.
The operatives first inspected a warehouse of Mighty Corp. where 14 master cases of Mighty and Marvels cigarette brands failed in a taggant test. The 14 boxes were all confiscated and brought to the BOC office.
The boxes of cigarettes with fake stamps were found in an office inside the warehouse separate from a bulk of stored cigarettes, which were first tested and found to have genuine stamps. Immediately after confiscating the suspected items, BOC operatives, acting on an intelligence information, rushed to Santa Rita, Samar, and apprehended a van suspected of carrying Mighty products with fake stamps. The van was then about to enter San Juanico Bridge en route to Tacloban, where the cigarettes were supposed to be delivered when it was spotted by BOC operatives.
The van was brought to the BOC compound in Tacloban for taggant testing with representatives of the BIR the following day, Saturday.
Taggant testing conducted separately by BOC and BIR representatives on eight randomly selected master cases of cigarettes all showed that the cigarettes were using fake tax stamps. All the 630 master cases of cigarettes in the van were confiscated.
BOC inspector Capt. Joenel Pogoy said the operations were conducted based on information received at the central office on the presence of suspicious items.
Pogoy said the 644 master cases of cigarettes that were confiscated in the two operations were worth more than P18 million. BIR representatives present determined that excise tax from these cigarettes could amount to at least P9 million.
Sharilee Gaspay-Mauro, Mighty Corp., lawyer in Tacloban, questioned the legality of the confiscation done by the BOC team.
“I am questioning the authority of the BOC to confiscate because these are locally produced items and not imported items. The BOC has only concern over imported items,” Mauro said. “Actually, the tagging can only be done by the BIR and not by the Bureau of Customs.”
But Pogoy said the BOC is authorized by law to investigate since a product with fake stamps could only mean that it is either a counterfeit or a smuggled item.
“Our mission is to evaluate and check, so we will take custody of these. We cannot release them to other agencies. We still have to determine the export components of these goods,” he said.
With reports from Elmer V. Recuerdo
