LAHORE: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Member Customs (Operations) Dr. Jawwad Uwais Agha held marathon sessions on 24 & 25th May with Chief Collector of Customs Central Region Zeba Hai Azhar and Collectors of the Central Region (Appraisement & Preventive, Faisalabad and Multan) of Pakistan Customs.
During the course of meetings the performance in terms of revenue collection and enforcement operations during the current financial year was analyzed and strategy was finalized to maximize the revenue collection during the remaining period of the financial year but without compromising the trade facilitation.
The revenue collection of the Central Region in terms of total duty and taxes stood at Rs160 billion including 6 percent customs duty during the period between July 2018 to April 2019. The collection of customs duty recorded at Rs 66 billion which is 32 percent more as compared to same period of the last year. Likewise the Central Region has collected Rs75 billion as sales tax, Rs17 billion as withholding tax and Rs1.7 billion as federal excise duty (FED).
Similarly, the central region has seized smuggled goods amounting to Rs1.5 billion during the last ten months by taking effective enforcement measures. The recovery of arrears has also been expedited and as a result MCC Appraisement Lahore has auctioned three properties of the defaulters which is unprecedented in this region.
The performance of the Collectorate of Customs Preventive was specially reviewed. It was observed that Preventive has showed tremendous growth by collecting Rs17 billion in the current Financial Year so far which exceeded the proportionate target by 34% and in comparison with same period of last year it collected additional revenue by 67 percent.
During the month of May 2019 the Collectorate of Customs Preventive has collected customs duty to the tune of Rs1195 million so far which is 20% more than the proportionate monthly target and 94 percent more than the corresponding period of the last Fiscal Year.