CBR Chairman Abdullah Yusuf has announced that the business community has been given amnesty scheme for waiver of penalty on payment of principal amount of customs duty as part of CBR strategy for recovery of arrears.
He told the Quarterly Conference of Collectors of Customs on Wednesday that amnesty has been given to those against whom arrears of customs duty and penalties were outstanding. He urged the collectors to make this facility known to all those against whom arrears are outstanding, and thus expedite recovery of arrears.
The conference took a number of decisions, including valuation of imported goods, job description of officers, internal and external audit, anti-smuggling efforts, disposal of confiscated vehicles and narcotics updating and modernisation of customs labs, review of litigation pending in superior courts and the appellate tribunals.
Officials told Business Recorder that the meeting was also briefed about the exchange of import/ export data between China and Pakistan to check under-invoicing.
Taking serious note of the loss of revenue due to smuggling, under-valuation and misreporting, the Chairman directed the collectors to come up with viable suggestions to resolve these issues.
In this regard, he referred to the smuggling of polyester cloth, which has been effectively checked through putting new tariff in place. "All smugglers of polyester cloth are now in a quandary and feel ditched by the fiscal measures of the Government," he observed.
The Chairman expressed satisfaction that almost entire pendency of indirect taxes appeals and adjudication cases has been liquidated. Out of total 24,473 adjudication cases and 6071 appeals available for disposal with the Collectorates (Adjudication and Appeals) during the last fiscal year, 21,601 adjudication cases and 5,155 appeals have been decided up to the end of June, 2005.
The achievement was more than 200 percent, both in disposal of adjudication cases and appeals, against the target assigned to CBR by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz for the fiscal year 2004-05.
Total number of pending appeals left with the Appeal & Adjudication Collectorates as of July 1, 2005, stands reduced to only 916 involving an amount of Rs 643 million. This includes 289 customs appeals, 613 sales tax and only 14 appeals relating to central excise duty.
Addressing the conference, CBR Chairman appreciated the dedicated efforts of Adjudication & Appeal Collectorates and expressed confidence that the collectors would continue to work with the same zeal in future. He directed the collectors to ensure quality in their decisions. "Simple and straight merit should be our consideration; nothing else," he remarked.
The conference also decided that following the example of CARE System at Karachi there was need for substantial reduction in customs processing time at other customs ports.
The Chairman congratulated the customs collectors for achieving the revenue collection targets for 2004-05 and asked them to gear up their efforts to achieve the aggressive target of Rs 690 billion for the current financial year ie 2005-06.
Yusuf opined that although the current year's revenue collection target seemed to be ambitions, but if the economy would continue to move in the manner it has in the last couple of years, and tax measures announced in the Budget are fully implemented and loopholes, leakage's and pilferage are plugged, this apparently huge looking target should not be difficult to achieve.
Referring to the current low tax-to-GDP ratio as compared to other countries of the region, the Chairman expressed the need to fully exploit the existing revenue generation potential in the country to achieve the desired ratio.
He asked the collectors to focus on major issues confronted with the Collectorates and evolve a strategy to overcome them. He assured them of all possible help and support from CBR in this regard.
Earlier, Member(Legal), Saeed Ahmed Zaidi, highlighted the achievements of Adjudication and Appeals Collectorates with regard to disposal of cases during the last fiscal year.
Later, Member(Customs), Ramzan Bhatti, briefed the conference about the achievements of revenue collection targets during 2004-05. He assured the Chairman that all possible efforts would be made to achieve the duty collection targets for the current fiscal year as well.
Other Members of CBR who were also present during the Conference were Aamir Z Chaudhry, Iftikhar Ahmed, Zafarul Majeed, Amjad Pervaiz, and Ather Maqsood.