KARACHI: Pursuant to the First Information Report (FIR), Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) of PaCCS registered against one Khawar Schehzad of K.K Traders for fraudulently evading an amount of taxes of RS9.99 million and violating several laws, a case has been filed before the court of Special Judge Customs and Taxation, Karachi seeking remand of the accused for 14 days to enable the investigation agency for a comprehensive inquiry of the case.
According to the details, the abovementioned importer electronically filed a Goods Declaration (GD) for the import of iron pad lock assorted, sanitary ladies pad and assorted eraser and determined the liability of payment applicable and sought clearance.
Scrutiny of the GD revealed that ascertained weight of iron pad lock comes to 19000KG instead of declared 600KG, assorted eraser’s ascertained weight comes at 26340KG against declared weight of 1160KG while the origin of sanitary ladies pads of Always brand were misdeclared as Chinese origin against the actual origin of Egypt, KSA, Hungary Etc.
Besides, there is a question mark whether the import of pads of Always brand is authorized along with all aspects including importability as per import policy.
The MCC PaCCS submitted that the importer had misdeclared in terms of weight of goods of iron lock while the weight is considered a prime factor in determination of the ascertained value.
For the ladies sanitary pads, the imported misdeclared the country of origin as China against the actual origin of Egypt, Hungary, KSA, Etc.
The above facts proved that the importer had deliberately concealed the actual contents of the GD and imported goods (sanitary pads Always) which are not importable without proper authorization and misdeclared weight of the other items and willfully with malafide intention and attempted to defraud the government exchequer.
The FIR was registered for violating Section 16, 32(I), 32(2), 32A, 79(I) and 192 of the Customs Act 1969, and Section 33 of Sales Tax Act 1990, Section 148 of the Income Tax ordinance, 2001 read with Section 3(I) of Import & Export Control Act, 190 punishable under clause 9, 14, 14A, 86 of Section 156(I) of Customs Act 1969 read with Section 3(3) of the Import and Export Control Act, 1950.
The submission before the court included that when confronted, the importer confessed to the crime and paid extra duty and taxes leviable on the goods which itself is a prove of the crime committed.