The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has estimated that over 0.1 million non-duty paid vehicles are plying in the country, according to data compiled by customs department. The audit of provincial excise departments showed that a large number of non-duty paid cars had been wrongly registered by the departments.
Information about these wrongly registered cars has also been obtained by tax officials.
Sources told Business Recorder on Saturday that CBR was expecting that around 50,000 non-duty paid cars would be regularised after launching of customs amnesty scheme, whenever announced by the Board.
The CBR has compiled the data on non-duty paid cars from three major sources i.e., agencies of NWFP, Kashmir and Northern Areas; provincial excise departments and different anti-smuggling agencies.
NWFP Governor has repeatedly requested the tax officials to launch the scheme for regularisation of vehicles plying in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA). Data obtained from this source showed that around 25,000 cars are plying in NWFP and Northern Areas.
According to CBR estimates, out of total 0.1 million non-duty paid cars, the owners of only 50,000 vehicles are likely to avail the expected amnesty scheme. These include cars above 1,600 cc capacity engines, luxury jeeps and reconditioned smuggled vehicles.
Sources said that CBR had recently given special assignment to a custom official of Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation, Customs and Excise to compile the data on smuggled cars from neighbouring countries and submit report on smuggling of cars from Afghanistan. This would help CBR in taking precautionary measures in future. The CBR Anti-Smuggling Wing will facilitate compilation of study prior to launching of the scheme.
There is no use of amnesty scheme in current circumstances because the number of smuggled cars will again increase due to absence of computerised database and effective check on such vehicles. The only way to check the smuggling of cars is to use database for tracking any vehicle plying in the country, sources said.