Local and international tobacco firms are on the watch list of Department of Finance (DOF) following reports that some of them are involved in illicit trade practices and tax evasion. The agency listed top importers of golden leaves and scrutinized their tax and duties of the said imported raw material.
An advertisement from DOF featured the top five types of tobacco imports. The ad campaign noted 90% of the total value of imported tobacco in 2013. The record includes unmanufactured and manufactured tobacco raw material last year. In addition, BWorldOnline reported that "five types of raw and manufactured tobacco products last year in terms of total dutiable value of imports, published alongside volume of shipments, duties paid, and average price per kilogram of these imports" were shown in the advertisement.
DOF officials said that the published information were extracted from the Bureau of Customs’ (BoC) electronic-to-mobile system database; however, it does not include assessments that were subject to manual inspection.
Here's the list of tobacco firms under DOF watchlist.
- PMFTC Inc. - manufacturer of brands like Malboro, Philip Morris, and Fortune
- Associated Anglo American Tobacco
- La Suerte Cigar & Cigarette Factory
- Air 2100 Inc.
- Specialty Pulp Manufacturing, Inc.
- Mighty Corp. - manufacturer of low-priced cigarettes such as La Campanilla, Magkaibigan, La Campana
- British American Tobacco (Philippines) Ltd. distributor of brands like Lucky Strike and Dunhill
- JT International (Philippines), Inc. - sells brands like Winston and Camel
- Realway International Philippines Corp.
Considering that DOF is now watching all cigarette makers, the government should now be able to identify who's really cheating them. There has been word wars between PMFTC and Mighty Corp, so hopefully the tax campaign of DOF will clarify the libelous claims of PMFTC against the Filipino-owned Mighty Corp.
The ongoing "Tax Watch" campaign of DOF is a weekly report which shows taxes and duties of tobacco companies. It aims to encourage all businessmen to comply with the sin tax law to help increase the government tax collections.
As of November 2013, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) only collected P280.742 billion in duties and taxes as opposed to its target of P312.001 billion. In December 2013, it should have collected P59.258 billion to meet its goal for 2013, however, it fell short and it only collected P27.998 billion.