KARACHI: The R&D Section of MCC Appraisement East has discovered a massive evasion of revenue by M/s Z.A Pharma through availing undue tax concession by the use of a fake formulation license.

According to the details of the case, Drug Regulatory Authority (DRA) of Pakistan, Islamabad confirmed that the License No. F00256 (Formulation) of M/s Z. A. Pharma is not genuine. It has, therefore, been established that the aforesaid importers have been availing undue benefit of exemption of custom duty, sales tax and withholding tax on the basis of the aforesaid fake license, thus, causing huge loss to the national exchequer.

Loss of revenue inflicted by their imports cleared through MCC Appraisement (East) & MCC-PaCCS is calculated at about Rs27.39 millions. Revenue loss in case of MCCA-West and MCC-PMBQ is Rs3.30 Millions and Rs0.53 Millions respectively.

These figures are retrieved from the data available up to March, 2014. An amount of Rs1.26 Million has already been recovered from the importers. However despite his assurance to pay the remaining amount of evaded revenue, he did not turn up back so far.

It may be mentioned here Inland Revenue Service (IRS) has issued licenses and registrations to a number of fake manufacturers and one-room companies to enable them avail certain tax concessions, which consequently caused huge revenue loss to the exchequer.

Collector Appraisement East, Najeeb Abbasi has revamped the entire collectorate and now the staff is working efficiently and a number of cases have been developed to recover the evaded revenue.

Moreover, R&D of Appraisement-East has initiated a campaign against the pharma sector and so far 20 cases have been developed against companies who had been evading duty/taxes one way or another.