DOF: New, improved cigarette tax stamp to be rolled out in January

The government has pushed back the rollout of new cigarette tax stamps with better security features as well as a new design to January next year.

“We are improving it but we will be moving the deadline a bit, maybe a few more months to January. There are still some things we tweaked on security features and things like that,” Finance Undersecretary Antoinette C. Tionko told reporters recently.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s previous target was to introduce the new cigarette tax stamp this month in order to combat the proliferation of fake stamps.

BIR Assistant Commissioner Teresita M. Angeles said they were “still going through the testing of the new stamps” and also “allowing the manufacturers to test the papers of the stamps.”

Angeles said the new tax stamp will feature the Philippine tarsier, one of the smallest known primates endemic to the country.

The existing design bears the “butanding” or whale shark.

Since the new stamp will have enhanced security features, it will cost 15 centavos a piece or two centavos more than the current price, which cigarette manufacturers shoulder.

Cigarette tax stamps ensure that the correct excise taxes are paid.

Meanwhile, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said in a statement Tuesday that the additional excise taxes to be collected from Mighty products under its new owner will reach as much as P40 billion next year, higher than the previous estimate of P24 billion yearly.

“Preliminary computations done by the Department of Finance and the BIR show that Japan Tobacco Inc. (JTI) will pay a minimum of P3.1 billion a month starting January 2018, which is about P2 billion more per month than what Mighty Corp. had previously been paying,” Dominguez said.

As such, Dominguez said that “for fiscal year 2018, JTI is expected to pay almost P40 billion out of the estimated P118 billion in total excise tax collections on tobacco products” or about a third of the projected revenues from cigarettes for the year.

Early this year, Mighty cigarettes had been found bearing fake cigarette tax stamps, such that the government slapped the homegrown manufacturer three tax evasion cases worth a total of nearly P38 billion.

The government eventually decided to settle with Mighty, under which the Bulacan-based company had to sell P46.8 billion in assets to JTI.

Mighty was the second largest cigarette manufacturer in the country after PMFTC Inc., the joint venture of tycoon Lucio Tan and global giant Philip Morris International.

Last Friday, the Department of Justice dismissed the tax evasion cases against Mighty owner Alexander Wongchuking, president Edilberto Adan, executive vice president Oscar Barrientos and treasurer Ernesto Victa as part of the tax settlement. /je