BIR urges public to report fake, smuggled cigarettes

THE BUREAU of Internal Revenue (BIR) is urging cigarette buyers to report fake or smuggled packs they found using the “Stamp Verifier App.”

In a text message on Saturday, Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares said the advisory issued by the BIR about the mobile application would let the public report establishments selling cigarettes with unpaid taxes.

Buyers as well as wholesalers and retailers were also urged to download the app—free and available for Android as well as iOS users—“to protect themselves and ensure that the cigarette packs they are selling are genuine,” Henares said in the advisory.

The Stamp Verifier App scans the tax stamps affixed on cigarette packs. A message saying “Invalid QR Code” means the cigarettes could be counterfeited or smuggled.

Since last year, the BIR has mandated all locally manufactured and imported cigarette packs to carry the internal revenue or tax stamps, proof that taxes have been properly paid by the manufacturer or importer.

In this regard, Henares said authorized BIR representatives would conduct “random on-the-spot checks of cigarette products in production areas, storage facilities and retail outlets to validate internal revenue stamps on cigarette products.”

“Cigarette products found to bear invalid [tax] stamps shall be subject to confiscation and forfeiture and the appropriate criminal action shall be filed, without prejudice to the assessment and collection of the proper excise taxes,” Henares warned.

The latest World Bank and Department of Finance data showed high compliance with the tax stamp system on tobacco products—as of May 1, 97.37 percent of cigarette packages nationwide bear stamps.

The Philippine Tobacco Institute, an umbrella group of tobacco stakeholders, had expressed concern about the illegal entry of imported cigarette brands such as American Legend, Far Star, Fort, Gudang Garam, Navy and Union which allegedly came from Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Malaysia.