ISLAMABAD: The Customs Appellate Tribunal has declared inadmissible and rejected the M/s Jaffer Brothers Private Limited refund claim. The company had submitted that they mistakenly claimed inappropriate PCT heading, which attracted higher rate of duty and taxes.
According to the details of the case, M/s Jaffer Brothers imported a consignment declared to consist of parts for earth moving machinery from UAE and sought clearance through their authorized clearing agent M/s. A.K. Sheikh and Sons.
The general duty was processed and assessed as per declaration and the duty and taxes were collected and no objection of any sort was raised by the importer at the time of clearance of goods.
However, after more than one month from the date of clearance of consignments, the clearing agent M/s A.K. Sheikh and Sons submitted an application for refund of the excess amount on the grounds that they had inadvertently typed the PCT heading for an item as 7325.9000 attracting customs duty of 25 percent and sales tax 18 percent instead of 8431.4900 attracting customs duty of 5 percent, sales tax 0.0 percent and claimed refund of duty and taxes of the differential amount of Rs 0.243 million.
Customs Appraisement and Collector Appeals rejected the claim under Section 29 of Customs Act. The Importer then approached Appellate Tribunal. The Tribunal observed that the impugned goods constitute parts of chains, which are made of cast iron or steel and were appropriately classifiable under PCT 7315.9000. Thus both the classifications declared earlier and claimed thereafter were incorrect. Tribunal observed the applicable rate of duty on correct PCT 7315.9000 and assessed PCT 7325.9000 are same, thus refund is not admissible.
