The Bureau of Internal Revenue will go after tax evaders and will work to ensure that they will be prosecuted to the full extent to the law.
This was the emphatic message sent by the BIR, which recently secured a favorable ruling from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a ₱5.7 billion tax evasion case it filed on February 7, 2025. The case is a result of the bureau’s largest raid against illicit cigarettes, conducted in coordination with the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) on November 6-7, 2024, in Bulacan and Valenzuela.
Lumagui stressed that the BIR’s latest victory “is a testament to our commitment to pursue every criminal involved in illicit cigarette trade” and that it served as a warning to all those involved in the illicit cigarette trade.
The case involved the seizure of approximately 21,000 master cases of illicit cigarettes with a tax liability amounting to ₱5,764,761,450.00.
Following the DOJ’s approval, two criminal informations were filed before the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) on March 13, 2025. Warrants of arrest are now being readied for the five Chinese nationals that are linked to the illicit cigarette operation.
In a post in his official Facebook page, BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr. said that the case against the five Chinese nationals “is part of our largest raid against illicit cigarettes.”
He stressed that the BIR’s latest victory “is a testament to our commitment to pursue every criminal involved in illicit cigarette trade” and that it served as a warning to all those involved in the illicit cigarette trade.
“We will raid your warehouses. We will destroy all illicit cigarettes and machines. We will file cases against you. You will be arrested.”
Just last month the BIR conducted a nationwide destruction operation of illicit cigarettes from February 24 to March 5, 2025.
Over ten days, 14.3 million packs of illegal cigarettes were systematically destroyed at designated sites to ensure they could never reenter the market. The illicit cigarettes were valued at around ₱2.1 billion with an estimated tax liability of ₱6.4 billion.
