LAHORE: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has found no revenue loss on account of the alleged unlawful clearance of goods worth $847 million during the import ban under the Pakistan Single Window (PSW) or “WeBOC” Customs clearance system.
The findings of the FBR after scrutiny of sample data concluded that no revenue loss has been observed by the investigating committee. In this regard, the FBR has received a report from the concerned fact-finding committee.
The issue pertains to the alleged unlawful clearance of goods worth $847 million during the import ban.
The scrutiny of the clearance data revealed the following issues related to the alleged misuse of the financial instruments module of Pakistan Single Window (PSW).
Firstly, clearance of a large number of consignments valuing over $800 million against Open Account without tagging of Form-I (FI) by the concerned banks.
Secondly, the use of the Chapter-99 facility to avoid tagging of the FI; although the claimed exemption of Chapter-99 against duties/taxes was removed by Customs during goods declaration (GD) processing.
Thirdly, the use of a single FI repeatedly against the multiple GDs with a huge difference between the declared unit price and the self-assessed/customs asses unit price.
The issues were identified by the filed formations and Directorate General of Reforms & Automation, Karachi. The Board had constituted a committee to conduct a fact-finding inquiry on the alleged clearance of consignments without meeting the requirement of Financial Instrument.
The committee has submitted an interim report to the FBR. After scrutiny of the sample data set, no revenue loss has been observed by the committee.
The findings of the committee revealed that the data of misuse of the Open Account mode of payment was extracted without any check or reference regarding the time period of one year (which is also further extendable by the SBP) allowed to the importers for attachment of Fl under the law for this mode of payment.
No GD can be filed on the basis of the Open Account mode of payment unless the Fl is attached with the GD in case of the WeBOC system or the importer is allowed by their banks on the basis of their profile and detailed scrutiny of bank customers’ risk profile/ KYC parameters in case of PSW system.
In order to ascertain whether any GDs were filed without the approval of the relevant bank through misuse of the system glitch, the committee shall scrutinize the details of such GDs.
