The Bureau of Internal Revenue has recommended to the Department of Justice to file tax evasion charges against tobacco firm Mighty Corp. and its top executives, which now have a total tax liabilities of P36.5 billion arising from the use of fake internal revenue excise stamps on its cigarette products.
The BIR filed last March P9.56-billion tax evasion charges against the owners and officials of Mighty Corp., and on May 9, the agency again slapped the controversial tobacco firm with a P26.93-billion tax evasion case, bringing Mighty Corp.’s alleged total tax liability to P36.49 billion—the largest tax evasion case under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
During the continuation of preliminary investigation hearing Thursday, BIR lawyers submitted a reply-affidavit asking prosecutors to file the case in court upon finding of probable cause.
They asked the DoJ panel chaired by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Sebastian Caponong to reject the defense raised by Mighty Corp. owner and vice president for external affairs Alexander Wongchuking and other respondents in their counter-affidavits.
The BIR lawyers refused to furnish reporters with copy of their pleading and immediately left the DOJ after the 20-minute hearing.
Sources said, however, that the BIR reiterated its allegations that Wongchuking and three other company officials violated the National Internal Revenue Code for unlawful possession of articles subject to excise tax without payment of the tax and for possessing false, counterfeit, restored or altered stamps on the master cases of cigarettes worth P2.3 billion bearing fake tax stamps seized from the firm’s warehouse in San Simon Industrial Park in Pampanga.
The bureau insisted that the stamps were fake since they did not contain the multi-layered security features of a valid internal revenue stamp and were not affixed at the production plant of Mighty Corp. in Bulacan as required by law, which means the seized master cases came from another manufacturing plant.
The prosecutors then set the next hearing on May 30 for filing of rejoinder by Wongchuking and other respondents-former Armed Forces deputy chief-of-staff and retired Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan, Mighty Corp.’s president; retired Judge Oscar Barrientos, company executive vice president; and company treasurer Ernesto Victa as co-respondents of Wongchuking in the first tax evasion case.
The first two hearings were held last May 4 and 11 when the Mighty Corp. officials submitted their counter-affidavits to the DOJ and sought the dismissal of the charges.
The panel has yet to set the hearing for another date on the second P26.93-billion tax evasion complaint filed by the BIR against the tobacco firm.
The new complaint stemmed from the raid conducted by the BIR and Bureau of Customs last March 24 on the tobacco firm’s warehouses at Barangay Matimbubong, San Ildefonso, Bulacan which resulted to the discovery of 536,000 cigarette packs in 1,072 master cases with fake stamps.
Mighty Corp. has reportedly offered to settle its tax liabilities through a compromise payment agreement, but DoJ Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II explained that the filing of cases against the tobacco firm would be necessary before the compromise could be entertained.