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Tag: Pakistan Customs

  • Finance Act 2019: SBP to assist Customs against illegal fund transfers

    Finance Act 2019: SBP to assist Customs against illegal fund transfers

    ISLAMABAD: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will assist customs authorities in prevention of illegal inward or outward transfers of funds.

    According to Finance Act, 2019 a new Section 32C has been inserted to Customs Act, 1969, which stated:

    “32C. Mis-declaration of value for illegal transfer of funds into or out of Pakistan.- (1) Without prejudice to any action that may be taken under this Act or any other law, for the time being in force, if any person overstates the value of imported goods or understates the value of exported goods or vice versa, or using other means including short-shipment, over-shipment, with a view to illegally transferring funds into or out of Pakistan, such person shall be served with a notice to show cause within a period of two years from the date of detection of such mis-declaration as to why penal action shall not be initiated:

    Provided that if goods have not been cleared from customs, such goods shall also be liable to be seized:

    Provided further that a team consisting of Additional Collector, duly assisted by an expert in the relevant field and an officer of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) as specified, shall submit a report in writing with evidence for the Chief Collector. The said report shall also be furnished to the SBP for action, if any, under the law regulated by SBP.

    (2) Any proceedings under this section shall not be initiated without the explicit approval of the Board.”

    The Finance Act, 2019 also mentioned penalty for such offence:

    “Such person shall be liable to penalty not exceeding two hundred thousand rupees or three times the value of goods in respect of which such offence is committed whichever is greater; and such goods shall also be liable to confiscation; and upon conviction by a special judge he shall further be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years and to a fine which may extend upto one million rupees.”

  • FBR notifies promotions of customs officers into BS-20

    FBR notifies promotions of customs officers into BS-20

    ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Wednesday notified promotions of four Pakistan Customs officers of BS-19 into BS-20 on regular basis with immediate effect.

    The following customs officers have been promoted to BS-20:

    01. Muhammad Asghar Khan

    02. Basit Maqsood Abbasi

    03. Ms. Sadia Munib

    04. Abdul Waheed Marwat

    The FBR said that the officers, who are presently posted against BS-20 posts on OPS, may actualize their promotions against their respective BS-20 positions.

    Posting of the remaining officers will be notified separately.

    The officers, if drawing performance allowance prior to issuance of this notification, shall continue to draw this allowance on their promotion.

    FBR congratulates the officers on their promotion.

  • FBR notifies promotions of Customs officers into BS-21

    FBR notifies promotions of Customs officers into BS-21

    ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Wednesday notified promotions of four Pakistan Customs officers of BS-20 into BS-21 on regular basis with immediate effect.

    The following officers have been promoted to BS-21 on regular basis:

    01. Faiz Ahmed

    02. Gul Rehman

    03. Dr. Fareed Iqbal Qureshi

    04. Ahmed Raza Khan.

    The FBR said that the officers, who are presently posted against BS-21 posts on OPS, may actualize their promotions against their respective BS-21 positions.

    Posting of the remaining officers will be notified separately.

    The officers, if drawing performance allowance prior to issuance of this notification, shall continue to draw this allowance on their promotion.

    The FBR congratulates the officers on their promotion.

  • FBR amends baggage rules, passengers required to make customs declaration

    FBR amends baggage rules, passengers required to make customs declaration

    ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has amended baggage rules and made it mandatory for passengers to declare their goods on arrival.

    The FBR on Tuesday issued draft amendments to Baggage Rules for passengers in order to clear their goods under concessionary or exempt regime.

    Under the draft rules made available to PkRevenue.com, a passenger is required to file a customs declaration at the time of arrival or departure.

    The declaration form shall include:

    Name of collectorate

    Passenger’s name

    Gender

    Date of birth

    Passport number

    Nationality

    Country coming from/going to

    Country going to (if in transit)

    Name of countries visited during the last 7 days

    Purpose of visit such as personal, official, business or tourism

    Contact person/sponsor, contact number in Pakistan, address in Pakistan

    The passenger is required to make following declaration:

    Are you carrying any of the following goods?

    Prohibited/restricted goods such as narcotics, psychotropic substance, firearms, weapons, satellite phones etc?

    Gold Jewelry, precious /semi previous stones

    Foreign currency in US $ or equivalent.

    Passengers have been advised to inform customs officer at the red channel if any of the above answer in Yes.

  • Customs stations to remain open on June 29, 30 for duty, tax collection

    Customs stations to remain open on June 29, 30 for duty, tax collection

    ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has instructed all the customs stations in the country to remain open and observe extended working house till 10:00 pm on Saturday (June 29, 2019) and till 12:00 mid-night Sunday (June 30, 2019).

    The FBR issued these instructions for facilitation of trade in payment of duty/taxes.

    The FBR has further instructed the Chief Collector of Customs to liaise with the State Bank of Pakistan and other scheduled commercial banks in their respective jurisdiction to ensure transfer of the duties/taxes collected by these branches to the respective branches of State Bank of Pakistan on the same date and to account the same towards collection for the month of June, 2019, a notification said on Monday.

  • Law proposed to end corruption in Pakistan Customs

    Law proposed to end corruption in Pakistan Customs

    KARACHI: The government has decided to take stern action against officials of Pakistan Customs, who are involved in corruption or corrupt practices.

    A new section 156A to the Customs Act, 1969 has been proposed through Finance Bill, 2019 to initiate criminal proceedings against officials involved in accepting bribe or corruption.

    According to EY Ford Rhodes Chartered Accountants Firm said that the Finance Bill 2019 seeks to insert a new Section 156A in the Act whereby the FBR may prescribe rules to initiate criminal proceedings against its officials who willfully and deliberately commits or omits an act which results in personal benefit or undue advantage to the officials or the taxpayer or both.

  • Adjudicating monetary limits of principal appraisers, superintendents enhanced

    Adjudicating monetary limits of principal appraisers, superintendents enhanced

    KARACHI: The government has enhanced monetary threshold of principal appraisers and superintendents for adjudication with condition of reducing time limit to 90 days for deciding cases.

    Through Finance Bill 2019, it has been proposed to redefine the monetary threshold of the officers of customs for adjudication. The bill also proposed to abolish the power of assistance collector in adjudicating matters.

    According to budget commentary of EY Ford Rhodes, the following powers of adjudication have been proposed as compared with existing powers:

    Power of adjudication

    Under Section 179 of Customs Act, 1969

    (i) Collector: No limit – No change in present power

    (ii) Additional Collector: Not exceeding three million rupees – No change in present power

    (iii) Deputy Collector: Not exceeding one million rupees – No change in existing power

    (iv) Assistant Collector: Not exceeding five hundred thousand rupees: the power of assistance collector proposed to be deleted

    (v) Superintendent: Not exceeding fifty thousand rupees: proposed that it should not exceeding one hundred thousand rupees

    (vi) Principal Appraiser: Not exceeding fifty thousand rupees: it is proposed it should not exceeding one hundred thousand rupees.

    The Finance Bill further seeks to reduce the time period to decide the cases within ninety days instead of existing one hundred and twenty days.

  • Customs initiates examining exporters to check under-invoicing, mis-declaration

    Customs initiates examining exporters to check under-invoicing, mis-declaration

    KARACHI: Pakistan Customs has initiated examination of exporters’ profiles to check mis-declaration and under-invoicing for plugging revenue leakages.

    A statement said on Friday that the chairman of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Shabbar Zaidi had directed to identify the extent of mis-invoicing in export declarations in order to ascertain the suspected items or sectors and destinations for such mis-declaration, and to categorize exporters on the basis of risk profiling by segregating compliant exporters from those engaged in mis-invoicing.

    The Customs Operations wing has tasked the Director General Customs Valuation to submit a report in this regard.

    It has been further directed to develop a risk based system to intercept this trend without compromising export facilitation. Punitive action shall be taken against unscrupulous exporters under the proposed Section 32 C of the Customs Act, 1969 and the allied laws.

    This initiative has arisen in the backdrop of reports indicating mis-invoicing in exports, which includes under-invoicing resulting in loss of remittance of forex and over-invoicing used to transfer excessive funds abroad.

    Under-invoicing could be used also possibly as a mechanism for trade-based money laundering. One of the suspected methods used in under-invoicing in exports is through the medium of via port cargo.

    Export cargoes are mis-declared by under-invoicing the values of export commodities, and shipped to a via port wherein new declaration with actual values are re-shipped for a final destination.

    As a consequence, lesser amount of foreign exchange is remitted to Pakistan and a major portion of export proceeds is retained in the other country.

  • Customs unfolds bid to clear mobile phones on passengers’ stolen information

    Customs unfolds bid to clear mobile phones on passengers’ stolen information

    KARACHI: Pakistan Customs has unfolded a bid to steal the data of air travelers for the purpose of mobile phone registration with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

    According to the details the customs staff posted Jinnah International Airport (JIAP), Karachi detained a person, who was fraudulently obtained data of air travelers including passport numbers for clearing mobile phones at customs stage and for clearing PTA restriction.

    As per regulations only PTA certified mobile phones are allowed to have active connection in Pakistan. In this regard passengers arriving from abroad are allowed to clear one mobile phone without payment of duty and taxes. However, more than one phone will attract levy.

    Details revealed that customs authorities recovered around 63 mobile phones from a passenger namely Muhammad Umar arriving from an international flight.

    The accused passenger entered details of passengers into the PTA system to get cleared the mobile phones without duty and taxes. The accused passenger managed to get clearance from the PTA for those 63 mobile phones.

    This was confirmed by Muhammad Faisal, Deputy Collector of Pakistan Custom.

    The customs official said that the authorities had lodged an FIR against the accused for smuggling cell phones and stealing information of passengers.

    Faisal said that the accused had indulged in clearing mobile phones by entering details of passengers including CNICs, flight number and passport numbers etc.

    The accused in his statement said that many travel agencies were involved in this scam.

    The customs official said that PTA had been requested to introduce bio-metric system for the clearance of mobile phones.

  • Customs Intelligence Lahore to auction vehicles on May 23

    Customs Intelligence Lahore to auction vehicles on May 23

    LAHORE: Directorate of Intelligence and Investigation, Customs, Lahore has announced auction of vehicles to be held on May 23 at State Warehouse of the directorate.

    Following vehicles would be presented for the auction:

    1. Toyota progress car, 2927cc, 1999, JCJ11-0005820.

    2. BMW car 745I, 2003, WBAGL22000DP38322.

    3. Honda Civic Hybrid car, 1339cc, 2006, FD3-1006468.

    4. Honda Accord car CL-9, 2002, CL9-1000417.

    5. Toyota Mark-X car, 2005, GRX120-0025787.

    6. Honda Accord car (inspire), 2003, UCI-1007210.

    7. Jaguar X-Type 2.5 car, 2006, SAJAC51MX2XC26667.

    8. Toyota Crown car, 2003, JZS175-0064405.

    9. Toyota Crown car, 2001, JZS171-0075220.

    10. Toyota Crown car, 2007, GRS182-5014070.

    11. Honda Accord car, 2004, CL9-1050040.

    12. Triumph Heavy Motor cycle Colour Black, 2010, PROTOTYPEVH004CP2.

    13. Heavy Motor Cycle Yamaha Brand 1000cc made in Japan, R12000, JYARN041000003182.

    14. Toyota Vitz car, 2005, KSP90-0001037.

    15. Toyota Mark-X car Black, 2008, GRX120-3059202.

    16. Yamaha Dragstar Heavy Motor cycle 1100cc, 2002, VP10J-001201.

    17. Yamaha Heavy Motor cycle 500cc, 2006, JYASJ031000032395.

    18. Honda Heavy Bike 200cc, 2006, TA200-0034612.

    19. Honda Heavy Motor Cycle, 1992, 2073695.

    20. Toyota Mark-X Car 300, 2006, GRX121-1007695.

    21. Toyota Mark-X car 250, 2005, GRX120-3005684.

    22. BMW Car 750Li, 2002, WBAGN62040DE55989.

    23. Honda Civic car, 2006, FD3-1004522.