The 'special duty drawback teams' disposed of thousands of rebate and drawback claims in March 2008, particularly at Karachi. Sources told Business Recorder on Wednesday that the collectors of customs took prompt action on FBR directive to set up special duty drawback cells for speedy disposal of the pending claims.
It was directed that the special cells should clear all claims (up to March 2008) by the end of April 2008. Tax officials had expressed serious concern on pending claims at MCCs for which extra efforts were required to effectively tackle the issue.
In case of Model Customs Collectorate (MCC), Pakistan Customs Computerised System (PACCS), Karachi, the special teams disposed of 21,000 claims in one month. The FBR data showed that the entire pendency at MCC, PACCS would be cleared within the next one week.
Following the directive of the board-in-council, the MCC Exports Karachi also disposed of claims filed by exporters. Over 80 percent of the refund claims were of very small amounts which were given top priority by the concerned collectors. Similar situation prevailed in other MCCs where pendency has been reduced till March 2008.
The FBR will also take action against officials responsible for this pendency, which caused inconvenience to the exporters/importers. The board had directed the customs authorities to fix responsibility on the customs officials involved in delay in processing of claims.
There were many claims where incomplete documents were being submitted by the exporters. The exporters wanted to timely file claims with the relevant Collectorate. For this purpose, claims even without necessary documents were filed with the plea that missing documents would be submitted at a later stage.