ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has recovered Rs 127 million out of Rs 435 million evaded customs duty during the last six months.
In this regard, clearance collectorates made 261 contraventions reports on account of violation of different provisions of law and rules involving custom duty evasion of around Rs 435 million.
Sources told Customs Today that the cases were at different level of adjudication while recovery of Rs 127 million had been made in a number of cases.
Moreover, the source said that legal action was initiated under section 32 and 32A read with section 156 of the Customs Act, 1969 and after completion of legal formalities, fines and penalties, in addition to confiscation of goods, were imposed on the importers.
However, the source denied of occurrence of any open bid or mega scam of customs duty by the importers saying that there was no specific incident of huge amount of customs duty evasion during the last six months. It was just because of the fact that imported goods were cleared from ports under the prescribed law and procedures.
However, the above said cases were formed on the basis of violation of different provisions of law and rules involving custom duty evasion by the importers” the source observed.
The source explained the process for the clearance of imported goods saying that the clearance of more than 80% of goods, in terms of value, was made through Web Based One Customs (WeBOC).
In addition to human supervision, checks based on risk profiling, valuation, importability etc. are also inbuilt in the System. Post clearance scrutiny of imports/exports is also carried out by the Directorate General of Post Clearance Audit.
Moreover, the source said that in case of any evasion of duty or taxes at the time of import or violation of any law or rules, action was promptly initiated as per law and recovery was ensure after completion of legal process wherein any serious violation or wilful evasion was established penal action was also taken in light of provisions of the Customs Act, 1969 and other relevant laws.
