KARACHI: Directorate of Post Clearance Audit (PCA) Karachi has served three contravention reports on M/s Pak Telecom Mobile Ltd (Ufone) for evasion of leviable custom duty, sales tax and withholding income tax by mis-declaring the classification of imported goods.
Assistant Director Sajid Ali Baloch on the directives of Director Gul Rehman and Deputy Director Rashid Munir scrutinized the import data of ‘Telecommunication Equipment & Batteries for Telephone Exchanges’ falling under PCT heading 8507.2010, chargeable to duty 10 percent, it has been observed that certain Mobile Communication Companies have imported multipurpose Batteries & power equipments, evidently not for the use in telephone exchanges under this PCT Heading, while such batteries are correctly classifiable under PCT heading 8507.2090 chargeable to duty 20 percent.
Thus by mis-declaring these multi-purpose batteries under PCT heading 8507.2010 they have made a deliberate and willful attempt to evade duty/taxes.[the_ad id=”31605″]M/s. Pak Telecom Mobile Ltd, Islamabad, imported ‘Telecommunication Equipments, Power Support Systems, VRLA Batteries, Rechargeable Batteries, Battery Rex with accessories etc’ by mis-declaring them in the PCT heading 8507.2010 (which is a specified heading for Lead Acid Batteries used in Telephone Exchanges) instead of declaring them under their correct PCT heading 8507.2090 chargeable to duty 20 percent.
It is pertinent to mention here that certain other importers have cleared the similar goods under PCT heading 8507.2090.
By way of mis-declaration of classification, M/s. Pak Telecom Mobile Ltd (Ufone) with the active connivance of their clearing agents M/s Eastern Freighter Services has evaded/short paid duty/taxes of Rs416.325 million.
Accordingly, Audit Observations were issued to M/s. Pak Telecom Mobile Ltd, for explaining and clarifying as to on what basis they evaded the leviable taxes. The importer, however, failed to come up with any tangible evidence and explanation and was also unable to refute the charges leveled by the Department.
Therefore, three contravention reports have been served on the company for adjudication.