The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) filed on Wednesday tax evasion charges amounting to P711.3 million before the Department of Justice (DOJ) against businesses involved in the illicit trade of vape products.
In a press briefing, BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr. told justice reporters that the charges were filed against 75 retailers in the country.
“We have filed a case against illicit vape traders. These are the retailers that we raided and caught and confiscated, and we proved that the excise taxes on the products they were selling were not paid,” he said.
Lumagui personally made the filing, noting it is “a nationwide filing of criminal cases” where the BIR regional offices in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao filed their respective complaints in the regional offices of the DOJ.
He underscored that the products did not undergo analysis from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), such that it may not pass the quality standards.
Likewise, a huge amount of money is lost that may be used to improve healthcare and infrastructure projects of the government.
Among the complaints filed against business owners of unregistered vape products are tax evasion, unlawful possession or removal of articles subject to excise tax without payment of tax, and failure to file excise tax returns.
Lumagui reminded businesses to conduct their operations lawfully and issued a warning against those that sell illegal vape, use ghost receipts, and non-payment of taxes by large-scale online businesses.
Last year, the BIR also initiated a case where big-fish vape seller Tap Fog and conspirators were issued warrants of arrest for its estimated tax liability of P1.2 billion.
Meanwhile, the BIR also filed $8.7 billion worth of tax evasion cases in April 2025 against other large-scale illicit vape businesses such as Flava, Denkat, and Flare.
The complaints stemmed from a series of enforcement operations conducted by the BIR nationwide that revealed rampant selling of untaxed vape, including those without the required internal revenue stamps and proper BIR registration.
