MULTAN: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has allocated the annual Customs Duty target of worth Rs 13.49 billion to the Model Customs Collectorate Multan for the fiscal year 2014-15 as against Rs 12.3 billion for the last year of 2013-14.
During the last seven months of the existing Fiscal Year till 28, January, the MCC Multan has been able to collect Rs 4.85 billion as custom duty, which reflects that achieving the target for the Collectorate would be an exceptional work.
Annual target of all Federal taxes that is Customs duty, Sales tax, Federal Excise duty and Withholding taxes allotted to the MCC Multan for Fiscal Year 2014-15 is Worth 42.2 billion as beside Rs 46.4 billion during Fiscal Year 2013-14.
The collection of all said Federal Taxes at import stage remains Rs 18.6 billion until 28th January of the present Fiscal Year 2014-15 appearing a mounting task for the Collectorate to chase the total target throughout the economic year 2014-15.
Customs Today approached Dr Sarfraz Ahmad Warraich Collector MCC Multan to know the reason of lagging behind in chase of annual target .The collector revealed that ex-bonding of High Speed Diesel (HSD) oil constitutes 97 percent of the revenue collected by the Collectorate.
The Remaining 3 percent of the import revenue collected by the collectorate includes RBD Palm oil, various articles of iron and steel, machinery and equipment being imported by the industrial units of the region. Ghazi tractors are the major importers of this constituency. The Collector Sarfraz Ahmad Warraich states that imported ex bonding during last seven months proved to be the critical factor for collection of lesser revenue.
He stated as against 887 million liters of HSD oil imported during July to December 2013. 824 million liters of HSD oil is imported ex bonding (MCC) Multan during July to December 2014 which also reflects a decrease of 64 million liters during the current Fiscal Year 2014-15.
He further revealed that as against 73.38 per liter average assess-able HSD oil rate during July 2014 while the same price fell to 64.56 per liter during December 2014. Due to two factors of low quantity and assess able value of High Speed Diesel HSD oil the Collectorate of Customsm Multan has suffered total revenue shortfall of worth Rs 772 million during the first six months of the current Fiscal Year.
However, Collector (MCC) Multan Dr. Sarfraz Ahmad Warraich, said that all out efforts shall be made to chase the annual target of Customs duty and other Federal taxes within the given resources. Collector Sarfraz Ahmad Warraich told Customs today on the query that why importers of this region are not preferring Multan Dry Port for the clearance of their imported cargo. The Collector (MCC) Multan replied that higher freight charges of the bonded carriers against non bonded private carriers is one of the major reason for ignoring Multan Dry Port for the clearance of imported cargo.
He stated that a proposal for the establishment of multi model transportation at Sher Shah Railway Station is under process. Once the said facility is establish imported cargo will be transported through Pakistan Railway Cargo train which are freight efficient and we hope that such facility would boost import and export activity at the Multan Dry Port.
