KARACHI: Customs Appraisement South has collected total revenue of Rs112.224 billion for the month of October 2019, which is 6.6 percent higher than the collection of Rs105.618 billion recorded in October 2018. However, Appraisement South’s collection during the month under review missed the target of Rs123.8 by 9.35 percent.

MCC Port Qasim remained the star performer collecting Rs55.53 billion in October surpassing the target of Rs52.62 billion by 5.23 percent. The collection surged 29.6 percent as compared with Rs42.84 collected in the same month last year.

MCC Appraisement West collected Rs55.53 billion in October missing the target of Rs26.51 billion by 35 percent. The collection declined 20 percent as compared with Rs21.59 billion collected in the same month last year.

MCC Appraisement East collected Rs39.51 billion in October missing the target of Rs44.67 billion by 12 percent. The collection declined 4.0 percent as compared with Rs41.18 billion collected in the same month last year.

This is the first time that the Collectors’ postings were not linked with achieving the target. An official said the officers operated freely this time and instead of meeting the targets by any way possible, the officers are ending mis-declaration, under-invoicing and smuggling.

Earlier, the collectors allowed assessment of similar goods on different values just to meet the targets. Now, the values are being streamlined and similar rate of taxes and duties are being implemented on imports to encourage healthy competition in the market.

It may be mentioned here that there has been a significant decline in imports after government restricted car imports, electronics imports and etc. FBR has now devised a strategy to eliminate trading in the smuggled goods since the influx o such goods cannot be stopped due to some reasons.

There are some senior officers in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), they have played havoc with the country’s economy. If only audit of green channel is conducted; misuse of SRO 1125 and amendments in this SRO; registration of 601 fake companies in Inland Revenue are investigated; switching of assessment of zones by IRS; hundreds of billions of rupees are recovered and economic terrorists are identified.

Analysts believe that economy has already started recovering as trade deficit is shrinking, current account deficit is shrinking and sooner the Pak Rupee would start gaining value against the greenback.