THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) on Thursday filed a case against a Tacloban City businessman at the Department of Justice (DOJ) for possessing fake cigarettes with fake excise tax stamps, with the estimated aggregate deficiency excise tax liability amounting to P212.625 million.
The BIR Eastern Visayas region said in a statement it has filed a criminal complaint against Paul Cartel Radam, for the unlawful possession of articles subject to excise tax without payment of the tax, and for possessing false, counterfeit, restored or altered stamps, in violation of the National Internal Revenue Code.
Registered businesses owned by Radam include Paul Radam Realty as well as PR Petron Filling Stations, which are located at Nula-Tula, Tacloban City.
An investigation was started last year by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Eastern Visayas region involving counterfeit cigarettes bearing fake excise tax stamps that were allegedly stored and sold in a warehouse in Barangay 74, Maharlika Highway, Nula-Tula, Tacloban City.
A Mission Order (MO) was issued, directing revenue officers from Eastern Visayas to conduct verification, surveillance and seizure activities at the warehouse owned by Radam.
After serving the MO, various master cases of cigarette brands were found by a composite team inside the warehouse. The discovery was witnessed by NBI operatives, Intellectual Property and Information Provider (IP2) Manila Associate Inc. and barangay officials.
An inspection and systematic verification of 19 randomly selected master cases, using a Taggant reader, showed all selected cigarette packs bore fake stamps and carried the same serial number.
A Taggant reader is a BIR-registered equipment used to test the authenticity of the excise stamps affixed on cigarette packs.
A total of 1,215 master cases containing various cigarettes with fake stamps were marked and seized from the warehouse.
All the seized merchandise was then tested and verified in the presence of the NBI, barangay officials and Radam, who refused to participate in the testing.
This is the 428th case filed under the Run After Tax Evaders (RATE) program of the BIR under the leadership of Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay.
Meanwhile, the Department of Finance (DOF) together with the Department of Health (DOH) launched a new advertisement featuring Sen. Emmanuel D. Pacquiao in a fight against the iconic “Yosi Kadiri” with the campaign’s tagline being, “Hindi pa tapos ang laban [The fight isn’t over yet].”
Pacquiao, better known as “Pacman” or the “Pambansang Kamao,” is shown in the new advertisement as a champion of the Filipino people’s health.
DOF and DOH have revived Yosi Kadiri to help generate greater public support for, and persuade legislators to pass the bill increasing excise taxes on tobacco products.
Considered as one of the most
successful health campaigns in the 1990s, Yosi Kadiri was first launched by the
DOH under the late former Health Secretary and
Sen. Juan M. Flavier.
The iconic Yosi Kadiri mascot was introduced to depict the detrimental effects of cigarette smoking on the health of both smokers and nonsmokers.
Three pending bills in the
Senate are separately pushing for further increases in tobacco excise taxes
from P60 to P90 per pack: Senate Bill 1599 filed by Pacquiao, which aims to
increase tobacco excise tax to P60 per pack regardless of brand or price in the
first year of implementation, and an additional 9 percent each year thereafter;
SB 2177 by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian which proposes to increase it to P70 per
pack; and Sen. JV Ejercito which proposes a P90 per pack tax
under SB 1605.
With only three working weeks left for the 17th Congress, the advertising launch is part of a multistakeholder push to increase tobacco excise taxes to at least P60 per pack to safeguard public health and sustain funding for the Universal Health Care (UHC) law.
The UHC law aims for 100-percent health service coverage for all Filipinos, which is estimated to cost P257 billion in its first year of implementation alone, in keeping with President Duterte’s commitment to attack poverty and improve living standards.
Simulations developed jointly by the DOF, DOH and the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that the DOF-DOH proposal on a P60-per-pack increase in the tobacco excise tax will bring down cigarette consumption by 16.8 percent and enable 3.2 million adults to quit smoking.
Raising excise taxes on “sin” products is still the most effective policy tool to affect alcohol and tobacco prices to discourage consumption, and prevent the youth and the poor especially from smoking and binge drinking, according to the DOF.
Both measures on increasing excise tax rates for tobacco and alcoholic beverages are part of Package 2 Plus of the DOF’s Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP).