FAISALABAD: The Faisalabad Customs is taking appropriate steps to facilitate importers and exporters of the region in order to generate much needed revenue for national kitty, besides tight hinging noose on smugglers.
This was stated by Additional Collector Saeed Asad during an interview with Customs Today, adding, “We (customs) are always available to settle the issues of traders, who play active role in national economy, and brief them on latest policies of customs department”.
“I will try to collect maximum revenue to meet the targets of running fiscal year, as achieving the target and curbing the smuggling are my top priorities,” he said, adding that he motivated the officials of the department on a daily basis to show their maximum performance on the directions of Collector Zulfiqar Ali Chaudhary.
He informed that the Faisalabad Customs Appraisement showed outstanding performance in revenue collection during October 2016 as compare to same corresponding period of last year, adding that the appraisement collected revenue under the heads of customs duty, sales tax, income tax and federal excise duty (FED).
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had assigned Rs 630.83 million target to the Customs Appraisement for October 2016, while the department collected Rs 761.4 million during the said period and surpassed the set target by 21 percent, he said.
Saeed Asad further explained that appraisement branch collected Rs 138.681 million as customs duty against the set target of Rs 108 million and Rs 610.935 million as sales tax against the target of Rs 493 million.
It also collected Rs 11.755 millions in the wake of income tax against the set target of Rs 14 million and Rs 65,000 in the wake of federal excise duty (FED) against the target of Rs 15.830 million, he said.
He added, “No doubt we are working hard and successfully collecting the revenue more than the target set by the government”. He said that the trend of generating revenue against the set target was positive and it happened for first time in the history of Faisalabad Customs Appraisement.
The additional collector highlighted that import branch of the customs was giving special attention to improve its performance. Resultantly, there has been observed improvement in the performance every month, as revenue collection is increasing day by day, he said.
The Customs Appraisement has already sent show cause notices to numbers of tax defaulters in recent months asking them to clear outstanding tax dues at the earliest to avoid stern action. He added, in October, the department achieved the target set by the FBR with a significant ratio.
Talking about payment of refunds, he said that all refund claims up to June 30, 2016 have been totally cleared while import containers were being cleared on the same day. Such steps are not only saving times of businessmen but also facilitating them to expedite the trade activities, he informed.
Additional Collector Saeed Asad also thanked Collector Zulfiqar Ali on his support, adding that the collector is very kind and fully cooperative with importers and exporters and hoped that this cooperation will continue in the best interest of the country.
