World Trade facilitation obligation: NBR for strengthening risk management wing
Al Amin :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is finding no alternative way but to strengthen the function of the Customs Risk Management Commissionerate (CRMC) for quicker release of imported goods.
The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Cabinet Division recently sent letters to the NBR for physical examination of the whole consignment to prevent releasing goods through false declaration and duty evasion.
Replying to the letters, the NBR said that the issue of false declaration is not only related to duty evasion but also related to the list of controlled or prohibited products of various departments, to foreign exchange control laws, motives of other stakeholders and many other interrelated issues.
About 17,000 bills of entry (B/E) for import and export are submitted per day through various ports of the country. In that case, about 850 consignments need to be physically checked every day, if five per cent of the B/E has been taken for assessment, which is impossible for the NBR with the present insufficient workforce, it thinks.
The procedure is also time-consuming as well as contradictory to the world trade facilitation policy, the tax administration said.
Instead, it opines for expediting the functioning of the Customs Risk Management Commissionerate (CRMC), the newly formed Commissionerate, in order to quick release of goods from the country’s ports.
If the CRMC acts properly, cost of business, production cost, dependency on air cargo will be reduced as well as it will be possible to deliver exported goods timely, the NBR said.
The quick release of goods from the ports will be the most important requirement for the international trades in post-LDC graduation of the country to increase business competitiveness.
“The very high percentage of examinations should be phased out gradually from the current 15 per cent to only five
per cent within a year by developing and implementing a robust risk management strategy. In this regard, NBR should expedite the functioning of the CRMC to centralize the selectivity criteria,” said an NBR official.
Besides, there is no option to take additional charges from the importers for 100 per cent physical examination of the goods, he added.
He further said that the expansion of the customs and VAT wings had been done in 2011, although the size of international trades of the country has increased several times in the last 13 years.
On the other hand, the revenue board recently conducted a survey in this regard and it placed separate recommendations for three major ports of the country in line with releasing export-import goods within the shortest possible time.
