KARACHI: Collector Appraisement East Aamir Theim has assigned Additional Collector R&D Imran Sajjad Bukhari to approach China Customs authorities to obtain the details including value and supplied of electric buses imported by M/s CAUSIS Mass Transit (Pak) Private Limited.
An official said it was a high-profile scam for which, the importers earlier imported just two buses at $31,000 each and had them cleared. This exercise was aimed at creating a reference in the Customs 90-day data.
After that, importers brought 50 electric buses declared to be $30,000 each, which were cleared at $31,000. Customs will confirm the whether supplier of the all these 52 buses are the same or not.
Additional Collector Omer Shafiq detected this case and took a stand. Assistant Collector Saifullah Khan and Preventive Officer Malik Hashim are pursuing the case.
A contravention report is served on the importer M/s. CAUSIS Mass Transit (Pak) Private Limited and the agent M/s Haris Enterprises for knowingly and willfully attempting to evade legitimate duty and taxes by declaring untrue value in the goods declaration on the basis of fabricated and grossly under invoiced value of the goods.
M/s CAUSIS Mass Transit (Pak) Private Limited imported 50 units of low floor electric buses fully built drive away condition with rechargeable lithium-ion battery from M/s Causis General Trading LLC, Dubai and sought clearance through authorized customs clearing agent M/S Haris Enterprises under PCT heading 8702.4090 by claiming exemptions of Customs duty and Sales Tax at a declared value of $45000/unit C&F Karachi.
The importer paid upfront amount of duties and taxes to the tune of Rs.41.2 million. The importer/clearing agent also uploaded Commercial Invoice issued by the consignor to the consignee and Packing List at the time of submission of foresaid goods declaration.
On the directives of Collector Appraisement East Mr. Amin Thaim, Additional Collector Omer Shafiq, Assistant Collector Saifullah Khan assigned Senior Preventive Officer Malik Hashim to verify/check as to whether the importer has correctly declared their values and other particulars/specifications of the goods.
As evidence of identical/similar goods was not available in 90 days data and the declared per unit value of the impugned buses was found abnormally low when compared with the diesel and hybrid model buses which are cheaper than electric buses being latest technologies involved, available in the database and in view of credible information that the importer are trying to evade huge amount of duty/taxes as large number of buses are anticipated to be imported in the next few months and they will try to create evidence in this regards for a much lower value in comparison with the actual value as they or their related party has imported previously 2 buses at abnormally low values and managed to get them cleared on that abnormally low value.
The importer/clearing agent and the concerned shipping agent were asked to provide all relevant documents including documents submitted at the port of loading as no local agent of the manufacturer of the impugned buses in the country for ascertaining MRSP as per procedure laid down under CGO 14/2005 pertaining to assessment of vehicles was available.
Accordingly, the goods were assessed in the light of evidential export GDs i.e. $214,300/unit calculated after adding freight etc. While assessing the aforesaid buses, the assessing officer declined the exemptions of Sales Tax claimed by the importer in the Sixth Schedule and levied 1% CVT which was not applied earlier.
However, the importer/clearing agent did not contest/agitated over the assessed per unit value in these reviews before the relevant Customs Officers.