The Department of Justice is in the process of determining the existence of probable cause for the filing of the first tax evasion case against officials of Mighty Corp. after it concluded Tuesday its preliminary investigation on the P9.56-billion tax complaint filed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue against the controversial tobacco company.
However, the legal woes of the officials of Mighty Corp. are not over yet as they still need to again face the DoJ’s panel of prosecutors on June 8 for the start of the preliminary investigation of the BIR’s second tax evasion involving P26.93 billion in unpaid excise taxes.
This came after Mighty Corp. owner and vice president for external affairs Alexander Wongchuking and other respondents again appeared before the investigating DoJ panel chaired by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Sebastian Caponong in hearing and submitted their rejoinder where they reiterated their denial of the charges.
“So after the submission of the rejoinder affidavit, this case is now submitted for resolution,” Caponong said, in wrapping up the first tax case filed by the BIR against the controversial tobacco firm.
While the panel was not inclined to require the parties to submit their respective memoranda, the lawyer of the BIR moved that it be given 15 days within which to submit their memorandum.
“We are moving to file a memorandum, to be given 15 days to file our memorandum to summarize our position in this case, considering that this case is a separate case from the other cases,” the BIR lawyer said.
Mighty Corp. expressed no objection to the submission of memoranda. “The submission of memorandum is discretionary on our part if we feel there is no need for you to file a memorandum. We will proceed with resolving the case. As of now, we feel we that we can resolve the case even if you don’t file a memorandum. So we will just have to let go of your memorandum and we will proceed with the case being submitted for resolution,” Caponong said.
Wongchuking and the other respondents—former Armed Forces deputy chief-of-staff and retired Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan, company president; retired Judge Oscar Barrientos, company executiveVice President; and company treasurer Ernesto Victa – again claimed that they did not violate the National Internal Revenue Code and had paid correct taxed. The Mighty Corp. executives also insisted on their plea for dismissal of the BIR complaint for lack of probable cause.
Their camp, however, refused to furnish members of the media copy of their latest pleading. With the conclusion of the PI on the first complaint involving P9.56 billion in alleged unpaid excise taxes, the DoJ submitted the case for resolution and will now proceed with the PI on the two other complaints filed by BIR against the same Mighty Corp. officials.
The panel has set the hearing for the second tax evasion complaint involving P26.93 billion in unpaid excise taxes on June 8 at 2 p.m.The DOJ has not yet consolidated the BIR complaints against the tobacco firm. Caponong explained that without any plea for consolidation of the complaints, they would treat the three complaints separately and come up with a resolution for each.BIR lawyers manifested during the hearing that they would oppose any move to consolidate the complaints.
The first complaint stemmed from the master cases of cigarettes worth P2.3 billion bearing faketax stamps seized from the firm’s warehouse in San Simon Industrial Park in Pampanga, while the second one involves the 1,072 master cases with fake stamps seized from its warehouse in San Ildefonso, Bulacan.
A third complaint was filed by the BIR against the firm last week involving P1.39 billion in unpaid excise taxes for its master cases with fake tax stamps seized from its warehouse in Barangay Lagao, Gen. Santos City. In total, Mighty’s estimated tax liabilities have so far reached P37.88 billion. 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 arranged.