KARACHI: After high profile cases of tax evasion by country’s top telecom companies like Mobilink and Q-Mobile, now Pakistan Customs has detected another such tax fraud by Telenor Pakistan and blocked its 9 consignments for mis-declaring the classification of imported equipment to be used for company’s 3G projects.
It was disclosed after the examination of these consignments that M/s Telenor Pakistan attempted to clear different telecommunication equipment under same HS Code i.e. 8517-6990, depriving the national exchequer of Rs 33.04 million revenue.
After this, the Directorate General of Intelligence & Investigation-FBR created a duty/taxes demand against M/s Telenor Pakistan to recover Rs 33.04 million, however, the company asked the Customs high ups to release their 3G technology projects-related equipment and agreed to pay duty/taxes after re-assessing the consignments by Customs.
It is worthy to mention here that country’s top telecom company Mobilink had also been caught evading millions of rupees taxes and customs duty by mis-declaration in the import of DC Cabinet Air Conditioners while using Green Channel facility at Port Qasim.
Customs Collectorate of Port Qasim had made contravention report against M/s Mobilink for deliberately mis-declaring the description and wrongly mentioning the PCT to avail Green Channel facility with the help of clearing agent M/s SASPAK Cargo. When examination team at QICT checked the consignment, they found that the importer wrongly declared DC Cabinet Air Conditioner 48 Volt as Cellular Infrastructure Equipment for telecom sector consisting of Outdoor Power Cabinet. Through this description the importer tried to clear the goods by paying only 10pc customs duty instead of 25pc, depriving the national exchequer of almost Rs3.5m revenue.
