THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has filed a P7.1 billion tax evasion case against contractor couple Pacifico and Sarah Discaya.
BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr. personally filed the complaints before the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday, October 9, 2025.
Based on the agency’s investigation, the couple has P7.1 billion in tax liabilities from 2018 to 2021, covering unpaid individual income taxes, excise taxes on nine luxury vehicles, and documentary stamp taxes related to their alleged divestment from four construction firms.
“We conducted essentially something like lifestyle checks. We looked at their properties and compared them with the taxes they paid, and we were able to build the tax evasion case against them individually,” Lumagui said.
The Discayas own two of the 15 construction firms that secured the largest number of government flood control projects from 2022 to 2025.
During a Senate Blue Ribbon Committee probe, Sarah Discaya admitted previously owning nine construction firms involved in various government projects and said they had divested from several of them.
“When you divest from a corporation, when you sell shares of stock, there should also be corresponding tax payments. The transfer of shares should also be reported. We saw that they failed to pay the taxes related to these transfers,” Lumagui said.
Over the past three years, Discaya firms won about P31 billion worth of government infrastructure contracts, including flood control projects.
Lumagui said more tax evasion cases are expected, as audits for other years are still ongoing.
“Ito pa lamang ang simula. Patuloy ang aming audit sa mga kumpanya ng Discaya, at inaasahan naming mas marami pang tax deficiencies ang mabubunyag at maisasampa sa korte,” Lumagui said.
(This is just the beginning. Our audit of Discaya companies continues, and we expect to uncover more tax deficiencies that will be filed in court.)
He said they are also looking into possible tax evasion of other contractors involved in anomalous flood control projects.
The Discaya couple had earlier tagged several lawmakers from the House of Representatives in an alleged scheme involving public funds for flood control projects. (TPM/SunStar Philippines)