Post-clearance audit: DG PCA to organise seminar on creating awareness

The Directorate General of Post Clearance Audit, Islamabad has decided to organise seminars at Karachi and Lahore for creating awareness on the subject among the business community particularly importers. It has been reliably learnt on Tuesday that the DG PCA would convene awareness seminar at Lahore on December 9, 2010 and Karachi December 10.
The representatives of Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) will also attend the seminars. The agency is already training Pakistani customs officials to increase their capacity in detection of fiscal frauds and duties/taxes evasion during clearance of imported consignments under automated system like Nippon Automated Cargo Clearance System (NACCS) of Japan. The training would help the officials in detecting fiscal frauds and duties/taxes evasion in clearances of commercial, Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) and bonded warehouses consignment.
New areas of post clearance audit included anti-dumping duties and evasion of taxes on import of oil products, iron/steel products, lubricants, chemicals, wood and yarn, misuse of exemptions and non-implementation of valuation rulings.
The directorate had unearthed massive evasion of duties and taxes in a large number of sectors including importers of auto parts, lubricating oil, pesticides, iron and steel products and non-payment of anti-dumping duty on the import of tiles from China. Besides many other key sectors, the specialised audit teams of the DG PCA has decided to securities tax record of imports from high risk countries like UAE, China, Malaysia, Taiwan etc and audit of imports made under the Duty and Taxes Remission on Exports (DTRE) scheme, private/public and diplomatic bonded warehouses, oil imports in bulk and misuse of exemptions pertaining to income tax, customs duty, sales tax and one percent special excise duty (SED) to unearth big cases of under-invoicing and evasion of duties/taxes.
The directorate is now focusing on most important areas for future 'entity based audits'. The initial scrutiny of record has already been initiated and dedicated teams of officer/officials have been constituted. The audit teams have been assigned specific task to unearth and detect mega cases of evasion of duty and taxes and non-observance of relevant rules and regulations particularly Customs Act, 1969.
The detection of such a large number of cases of under-invoicing, mis-declarations and evasion of huge duties/taxes through post-clearance audit reflects importance of such a key department of the FBR. The DG PCA Karachi has also detected other cases in different sectors, reflecting remarkable performance of the directorate with limited workforce.