Mighty Corp evaded ₱30B in cigarette taxes — and lost the company

Mighty Corporation was founded in 1999 and grew to become the Philippines' second-largest cigarette manufacturer, trailing only Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco. The company was built by the Wong family and rose rapidly by offering low-priced cigarettes in a market where smoking rates were some of the highest in Asia. At its peak, Mighty controlled roughly 30% of the Philippine cigarette market.

The problem was how Mighty achieved that growth. The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) investigated and found that Mighty had systematically evaded excise taxes by using counterfeit tax stamps on its cigarette packs and under-declaring production. In March 2017, the Bureau of Customs raided Mighty warehouses and seized cigarettes worth ₱2 billion bearing fake stamps. The BIR assessed Mighty for ₱30 billion in unpaid taxes — the largest tax assessment in Philippine corporate history.

The tax liability was existential for the family-owned company. Rather than fight a prolonged legal battle, the Wong family agreed to sell Mighty's entire cigarette business to Japan Tobacco International in September 2017 for ₱46.8 billion ($936 million). The proceeds went largely to settle the ₱30 billion tax assessment — and to fund the Duterte administration's infrastructure program. The Wong family lost control of the company they had built from scratch in less than two decades.