Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said any settlement with Mighty Corp on the latter’s tax evasion case is “now out of the question until the courts say so”.
The recent seizure of Mighty cigarettes bearing fake tax stamps would help the government build a strong case against the local tobacco manufacturer, the DOF chief said in a statement.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) on March 22 has filed before the Department of Justice a tax evasion case against Mighty for its alleged failure to pay an estimated deficiency excise tax liability totalling P9.564 billion. The case covers the March 1 seizure of more than P2 billion worth of cigarettes with alleged fake stamps at Mighty’s warehouses in Pampanga.
Among those charged by BIR are retired AFP deputy chief of staff Edilberto Adan, who is now Mighty president; retired Judge Oscar Barrientos, executive vice president; Alexander Wongchuking, vice president for external affairs and assistant corporate secretary; and Ernesto Victa, treasurer.
March 24 raids
On March 24, another inspection led by Bureau of Customs (BOC) operatives, on two warehouses reportedly owned by Mighty in Barangay Matimbubong in San Ildefonso, Bulacan yielded about 160,000 master cases with allegedly bogus tax stamps. The stash had an estimated street value of P3.2 billion, and cost the government an estimated P2.4 billion in unpaid excise taxes.
“The security team conducted random sampling/checking of each mastercase (of cigarettes) per warehouse using the BIR Stamp Verifier and results confirmed presence of counterfeit/smuggled cigarettes and fake tax stamps,” a BOC report submitted to Dominguez said.
The report said the security team that inspected the warehouses sought assistance in contacting representatives of the BIR and the National Tobacco Administration to further validate and conduct physico-chemical analysis on the cigarette stocks.
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