KARACHI: The Customs Directorate of Post Clearance Audit (PCA) Karachi has detected evasion of taxes and duties to the tune of Rs 505.710 million just in the month of August 2015 against Rs 5 million by the same in September 2014.
In an interview with the Customs Today, Directorate of PCA Director-Karachi Gul Rehman said that his directorate had detected around 56 cases of tax and duties evasion within a month. However, the same directorate in September 2014 had detected cases worth Rs 5 million.
In these cases, the audit observations of some 20 cases and contravention reports of 36 cases have been issued and the importers, who caused loss to the national exchequer, are directed to pay the short paid amount in 10 days, he said.
“There are some 32 cases of short payment of sales tax and corresponding income tax in violation of SRO 1125(I)/20116 dated 31.12.2011. The countries of origin of the imports are China, USA, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Kuwait, Egypt, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Germany, Somalia, Australia, UK, UAE, India and Singapore”, Gul Rehman added.
Moreover, the evasion of short payments of Customs duty and withholding income tax by claiming inadmissible benefits of SRO 638(I)/2005 have also been detected in which the importers evaded millions of rupees.
Furthermore, Gul Rehman says misuse of SRO 678(I)/2004 dated 07.08.2004 for domestic meters which are otherwise included in the locally manufactured list vide CGO No 11/2007 dated 28.8.2007. In this case, the importer alone evaded more than Rs 388.786 million, bringing a major loss to the national kitty.
It is pertinent to mention here that Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had posted Gul Rehman as Director PCA-Karachi in January 2015 and the officer broke all the records as cases of tax evasion was detected to the tune of Rs 1 billion in six months despite the fact that the directorate is facing serious issues like shortage of staff etc.
