THE Justice department on Wednesday created a three-man panel to probe the P9.564-billion tax-evasion case filed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue against the owner and officials of cigarette manufacturer Mighty Corp.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II designated Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Sebastian Caponong to head the panel along with Assistant State Prosecutors Maria Lourdes Uy and Mary Ann Parong as members.
He ordered the panel to file charges against the respondents if the evidence warranted it.
The BIR accuses Mighty Corp. of using fake tax stamps on its products to avoid paying taxes. It filed the charges against the company after confiscating P2.3 billion worth of cigarettes bearing fake tax stamps from the company’s warehouse in Pampanga earlier this month.
The bureau says the stamps were not affixed at Mighty Corp.’s the production plant in Malolos, Bulacan, as required by law, meaning the confiscated cigarettes came from another manufacturing plant.
BIR officials said they were preparing another set of tax-evasion charges against Mighty Corp. in connection with the cigarette packs worth P215 million with fake stamps that were seized from another warehouse in General Santos City.