KARACHI: Collectorate of Customs Port Mohammad Bin Qasim (PMBQ) has registered FIR against M/s Prime Steel as 22 of their post-dated cheques were dishonored.
Sources said that M/s Prime Steel Industry, Jamrud got cleared 22 consignments from MCC Port Qasim declared to contain huge quantities of iron and steel re-meltable scrap and Ferro Silicon Manganese among other goods.
M/s Prime Steel Industry through different clearing agents claimed exemption of Sales Tax under Sr. No. 151 of the 6th Schedule to the Sales Tax Act, 1990 and Income Tax vide Order passed by the Peshawar High Court and submitted post-dated cheques amounting to Rs50.313million in total) in lieu thereof.
In support of their claim, the importer submitted a certificate of the existence of manufacturing unit issued by Assistant Commissioner, Jamrud at the time of uploading of documents along with GD in WeBOC system.
The GDs were out of charged by MCC Port Qasim in terms of the certificate of existence mentioned above after extending benefit of exemption.
However, subsequently, this Collectorate received letter from Commissioner-IR, Corporate Zone, Regional Tax Office, Peshawar mentioning that while scrutinizing import record of the unit for issuance of “consumption certificate” vis-à-vis imported industrial input (raw material), it was found that the registered unit did not have any re-melting facility to process the 22 imported consignments of Iron & Steel Remeltable Scrap and Ferro-Silicon Manganese.
Therefore, the importer wrongly availed the exemption of Sales Tax and Income Tax on the basis of non-existent in-house production facility.
Accordingly, the RTO office rejected the request of the importer for issuance of “consumption certificate” and forwarded their case to MCC Port Qasim to forfeit / encash the Post Dated Cheques submitted by the importer against provisional clearance of the consignments.
