KARACHI: Pakistan Customs has started liquidation of financial instruments submitted by importers as bank guarantees against their goods clearance to boost revenue collection.
Pakistan Customs has also warned the importers to ensure sufficient balance in their bank accounts against the issued bank guarantees, otherwise penal action would be initiated against them.
A notice issued by Model Customs Collectorate of Appraisement (West) said that there is a huge pendency in the Bank Guarantee Cell (BGC), which had piled up over the years for various reasons.
Liquidate the pendency, a team has been constituted, which will scrutinise all the pending securities on the basis of available documents and ensure release or encashment of securities before June 30.
An importer submit a bank guarantee at the time of clearance of goods when there is difference of duty and taxes declared by the clearing agent and assessed by the Customs authorities.
At this point, the importer gets cleared the consignment by issuing a bank guarantee to settle the issue later.
The collectorate said that the preliminary scrutiny revealed that several importers had not fulfilled the conditions under which security was obtained and such security instrument was liable to be encashed.
To decide the cases unilaterally, Pakistan Customs has asked the importers to reconcile the accounts for issued bank guarantees and prove their stance for cancellation of financial instruments.
It said: Review all pending securities deposited with the BGC, which still have not been released by the collectorate. Importers have been requested to intimate the current status regarding the fulfillment of conditions laid down in the relevant SRO of each security to the Bank Guarantee Cell so that release or encashment of security instrument is decided.”
Sources in the Customs said that the collectorates have expressed concerns over those bank guarantees that were submitted by the importers on court orders.
They said that the liquidation of such financial instruments will create problems for the tax authorities, especially in those cases that were not decided as yet.
The sources said that importers also do not bother to inform the Customs authorities to encash the financial instruments after realising that their stance on the issue of duty and tax has no ground.
The total amount of pending bank guarantees is yet to be ascertained but sources said that it would be in billions of rupees.
