The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has empowered the Post-Clearance Audit (PCA) Central Office to assign audit of importers to any of the PCA Unit/collectorate, irrespective of imports carried through various customs stations/ports.
The board on Wednesday issued structure and functions of PCA through Customs General Order (CGO) 12 of 2007. Under this procedure, in case an importer selected for audit has conducted imports/exports from customs ports/stations located in the jurisdiction of multiple Collectorates, the Central Office may assign audit of such importer to any one of the related Collectorates.
The PCA Unit of the Collectorate will have the jurisdiction to conduct audit and pursue all subsequent matters including recovery of liabilities relating to that importer notwithstanding the place of its importation/exportation.
Under the structure and functions of audit, a PCA Central Office headed by a Director, shall be established in the FBR Customs Wing as the Central Secretariat which shall directly report to FBR Member Customs.
The Director of Central Office will be assisted by the Additional Directors, Deputy Directors, Assistant Directors and other officers and officials as may be required. In the case of goods cleared from the Karachi port, Port Bin Qasim and international airport at Karachi, the function of PCA shall be performed by Collector, PCA, Karachi, who will be reporting to Chief Collector, Southern Region.
In the rest of the country, each Collectorate of Customs will have a PCA Unit for carrying out post-clearance audit. These PCA Units will work under the administrative control of respective Collectors of Customs, and will be headed by an officer of Customs of such a designation as may be determined by the Board.
Typically, a PCA Unit would comprise Deputy Collectors, Assistant Collectors, Principal Appraisers, Senior Auditors, Appraisers and an officer with any other designation or rank and support staff, as may be required.
Through the CGO, the respective collectors of customs will post such officers and staff to the PCA Units under their respective jurisdiction as may be required. However, the collectors will ensure that the officers/officials who are posted in the PCA Units are competent, dedicated, enjoy good reputation and are well-versed with the use of computers. All posting and transfers in the PCA Units will be simultaneously communicated to the Central Office of PCA.
The Central Office will serve as the operations headquarters for PCA activities in the country including data analysis, risk assessment and selection of sectors/cases for Post-Clearance Audit and monitoring of the follow up actions.
The Central Office will assign the audits to the PCA Units, supervise and monitor progress of the audit cases and take all necessary measures to ensure that the audit activities are conducted fairly, transparently and in accordance with the law and the prescribed procedures as are laid down in Pakistan Customs PCA Manual.
The Central Office will issue work order to the concerned Collectorate of Customs and the PCA Units will review declarations and supportive documents, audit the business and prepare the report in the manner as provided in the PCA Manual. The PCA Unit in the field formations will record all the details and results of their work in the automated system of the PCA.
The CGO has specified that any Collector of Customs or PCA Unit may also identify cases where it may be deemed appropriate to carry out post clearance audit as a special case. All such cases shall be routed for action through the Central Office of PCA.
The Central Office will also be responsible for the development and maintenance of the National Historical Database, Client Accreditation Program, traders' profiles and records. It will also look after the development and maintenance of the "Computerised Audit Performance and Reporting System".
The entire range of business of the Post-Clearance Audit shall be conducted in conformity and compliance with the rules, procedures and the forms as are set out in the Pakistan Customs PCA Manual arid as directed by Chief collector or the Board, CGO added.
Meanwhile, sources told Business Recorder that the FBR had decided to pick customs clearing agents as well as importers for Post-Clearance Audit (PCA) under the newly devised risk parameters. The risk criteria and parameters for selection of importers for audit have been kept strictly confidential. The selection criteria would continue to change dynamically over a period of time taking into account different factors like imports trend.
In view of the confidentiality of selection criteria, the parameters have not been specified in the audit manual. The audit of customs clearing agents would be done on risk based criteria under the PCA.
Some senior tax officials have raised serious reservations over the customs intention to conduct audit of clearing agent under the new system of PCA. Instead of customs agents, the PCA should focus solely on importers in the first phase of audit.
As the agents are easily to be checked, the board has might included them into the PCA system. The board will constitute a small team headed by Member Customs to review selection criteria for audit. Sources added that the new PCA model has incorporated features of Japanese model, Irish, Thai and Malaysian PCA model.
Comments
Comments are closed.