KARACHI: The Customs Appellate Tribunal dismissing an appeal filed by importer of shoes and poly resin for false, deliberate mis-declaration has reduced the fine from 35 percent of the value of goods to 20 percent and reduced penalty by 50 percent to Rs100,000.
The appeal was filed by M/s Salma Sons against an order passed by MCC Appraisement – West, which rejected the self-assessment made by the importer.
The Collectorate maintained that an incomplete, vague description of goods was made by the importer to claim undue benefit of SRO, Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Pakistan and China. An attempt was made willfully and with mala fide intention to defraud and deprive the national exchequer from its legitimate revenue to the tune of Rs1.537 million in terms of Customs duty and other taxes.
Another mis declaration was about the origin of the goods which was claimed to be China while in fact they included items from Italy, USA also.
Similarly the item declared as poly resin on examination was found to be Poloyol. The appellant/ importer was charged with contravening different sections of the Customs Act and was slapped a redemption fine at the rate of 35 percent of the value of goods beside penalty of rupees 200,000. The tribunal however taking a lenient view ordered reduction of fine from 35 per cent to 20 per cent of the total value of the consignment and penalty from 200,000 to