KARACHI: Director General Customs Valuation Tanvir Ahmed has amended the Valuation Ruling No.855/2016 of office furniture and parts thereof. The Pakistan Furniture Importers Association and others had filed a review petition against the Valuation Ruling No.855/2016, which enhanced the values of office/ home furniture by 150 percent to 250 percent as compared to previous ruling.
The petitioners are paying 70 percent duty/taxes on the items classified under PCT heading 94.03 and 51 percent duty/taxes on the items mentioned under PCT heading 94.01. The imported goods are in CKD condition and importers have to incur a valuable amount for it’s assembling which results in further value addition.
The departmental representative argued that meeting with the stakeholders was held and all importers were requested to submit some import documents along with sales tax invoices. During the meeting importers were of the view that prices of the subject items have slightly increased in the international market. However, they could not substantiate corroboratory documents in support of their claim and valuation ruling was determined fairly after analyzing all the information.
The importers insisted on joint market survey which was duly accepted and conducted to find out the actual value difference between the market selling prices and the customs values determined vide valuation ruling no.855/2016.
During market survey it was found that there was vast range of furniture of Chinese origin. It was brought to the notice that the furniture of low category imported from China was not kept into mind while finalizing impugned valuation ruling. The representative of the department during the hearing explained that the price of normal bedroom set ranges from Rs70,000 to Rs90,000 and bridal bedroom set ranges from Rs1,30,000 to Rs1,50,000 surprisingly the values of bridal bedroom set was taken into consideration while determining the customs values and the values of normal bedroom set was not categorized.
Similarly, in the determined values of office furniture there is a wide variety/category of office chairs from executive to staff chairs and the values of different varieties of office furniture have not been worked out properly and the customs values have unreasonably been enhanced by taking average of all chairs.
The chairs were taken as Rs12000 to Rs14000 on average whereas low category chairs are also available in high volume sale ranging between Rs6000 — Rs12000 which was not considered. The representatives of Pakistan Furniture Importers Association and others while discussing the pros and cons in the implementation of the valuation ruling adamantly requested to withdraw the impugned valuation ruling or reduce the determined customs values of furniture by 60 percent which was not accepted.
However, after through deliberations with Pakistan Furniture Importers Association and others and the representatives of the directorate, it was decided that the exorbitant customs values of bedroom set, dining set, sofa cum bed, bedroom table and office chairs may be reduced 15 percent to 22 percent after fulfillment of joint market survey submission of import documents by the importers and online surveys. The department also accepted that in above categories prices were taken of higher categories.
In view of the above facts of the case, the valuation ruling no.855/2016 of home and office furniture and parts thereof is hereby amended and herein after specified shall be assessed to duty/taxes at the customs values mentioned against the items in Annex-I to this order.
