TACLOBAN CITY—The Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Thursday said it may cancel the import accreditation permit of Mighty Corp. following new discovery of 400 master cases of cigarettes believed to be bearing fake-stamp taxes.
The cigarettes were intercepted at the Tacloban port on Tuesday, March 7, in one container van loaded onboard cargo boat MV Lady Alina, which arrived from Manila on Monday evening.
“The accreditation of Mighty for importation [may] be canceled effective immediately based on evidences that we have gathered,” Customs Commissioner Nicanor E. Faeldon told media at the resumption of the opening of boxes of Mighty Corp. cigarettes at the port.
The cigarette packs were tested using a gadget that produced a red light indicating that the item had fake stamps.
Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) head in Eastern Visayas Teodoro Galicia said excise taxes from the 400 master cases of Mighty cigarettes will amount to P6 million. He said once tax assessment of intercepted cigarettes are completed, a report will be sent to the head office for proper filing of cases against the cigarette manufacturer.
Faeldon said the intercepted 400 master cases of cigarettes at the Tacloban port is “very small” compared to what they have discovered in other warehouses owned by Mighty Corp. He said in a span of seven days customs operatives have already discovered 73,000 master cases of cigarettes allegedly bearing fake-tax stamp in different company-owned warehouses all over the country.
“They have already proven based on evidence in the past seven days that they have cheated the government billions of pesos in taxes,” Faeldon said.
“This is a big amount of money that can already be used to build new health facilities,” he added.
TRO
Mighty Corp. was able to secure a temporary restraining order (TRO) from the Regional Trial Court in Manila against the BOC from “unjust and unreasonable inspection against plaintiff or its assests”, but that did not stop the BIR from opening the boxes to check on the authenticity of tax stamps.
Tyrone Tutaan, a lawyer representing Mighty Corp., was present when the boxes of cigarettes were opened. He said they will also seek a TRO against the BIR.
He maintained they have proof that the company is paying the correct taxes. “In fact, we have shown them an excise-tax return. But the problem is it was not a certified true copy because it was only sent through e-mail,” he said.
He confirmed that on the process of testing the authenticity of stamps of Mighty, it was indeed showing negative, indicating a possibility of fake-tax stamp.
“I am questioning the reliability of the BIR scanner, so we bought other cigarette brands sold in the mall and when we tested them they also turned out negative. They also failed,” he said.
“I cannot say that they are also fake stamps, but when we scanned our competitor products they also turned negative,” Tutaan said. “We are not violating anything. I don’t understand why we are being singled out.”