KARACHI: Customs Adjudication has penalized M/s Sigma Industries (Pvt) Ltd for attempting to evade government revenue through mis-declaring description of imported goods.
M/s. Sigma Industries (Pvt.) Limited filed a goods declaration (GD) for the imported consignment declared to contain Aluminum Sandwich Sheet Cutting Scrap weight 52320 Kg at a declared invoice value of $34,008. The importer determined his liability of payment of applicable duties & taxes and sought clearance through their clearing agent M/s. M.R. Enterprises.
In order to check as to whether the importer has correctly paid the legitimate amount of duties and taxes the under reference GD was selected for scrutiny
Perusal of the examination confirmed that the Aluminum Sandwich Sheet of Standard Quality weighing 22000 Kg, which is classifiable under PCT heading 7606.9290 (CD of 16 percent). The importer deliberately concealed the actual description of goods and filed an un-true declaration in order to get the goods released on highly suppressed values and to evade legitimate amount of Customs duty & other Taxes to the tune of Rs2.799 million.
After due process and hearing both sides, the Customs Adjudication found charges against the importer have been established. However, importer can release the goods on the redemption fine 35 percent on misdeclared items, which comes to Rs2.146 million. A penalty of Rs.40,000 is also imposed on the importer.
Moreover, assessment will be finalized on recovery of leviable duty & taxes and all legitimate amount after the application of valuation ruling, criteria, data whichever is applicable.
On the instructions of Collector MCC Port Qasim Chaudry Jawaid, Additional Collector Yaseen Murtaza, Principal Appraiser Sultan Aurangzeb, Appraising Officers Anwer Zeb and Nafees Qureshi pursued the case.
CIU Port Qasim has been quite efficient and detected several big scams involving huge amount of revenue. However, Customs Adjudication grants undue favors to the accused leading to long rounds of litigations.