November 9, 2001	Friday	Shaba’an 22, 1422

PESHAWAR, Nov 8: The NWFP-based authorities of the Central Board of Revenue’s customs extension are making arrangements to put hand on the owners of cars and vehicles that had recently been auctioned by the provincial government, official sources told Dawn here on Wednesday.

“These are non-duty paid vehicles, hence liable to be confiscated no matter provincial government has auctioned them,” said well-placed officials.

The Establishment and Administration Department, NWFP, had recently auctioned number of the provincial government’s surplus vehicles including some 31 non-duty paid cars/vehicles that had been confiscated, from time to time, by the anti-smuggling agencies of the province.

Sources said that the provincial government’s authorities concerned and the customs department’s Peshawar-based functionaries developed row over the issue of payment of customs duty and other federal taxes against the 31 auctioned vehicles.

In response to the customs department’s recently sent communique, the provincial government, said the sources, refused to pay the customs duty and other federal taxes for not having charged the same against the auctioned vehicles.

In the wake of the provincial government’s refusal, the customs department was making arrangements to recover taxes and duties from the owners of the auctioned cars, they said.

Under the customs act, the auction proceeds should also have included the customs duty and other federal taxes, according to customs department officials.

Customs department, the sources said, had plans to recover customs duty and other taxes from the owners of the auctioned vehicles once they (owners) are identified.

In this respect customs department would shortly move the provincial authorities concerned to provide the names and addresses of persons who bought these 31 vehicles under the auction(s).

Negligence on the part of provincial authorities, who supervised the auction, is likely to land the owners of auctioned vehicles in trouble.

“We can not do any thing in this respect,” said a customs official. “Under the law, these 31 vehicles are non-duty paid by all definitions of the customs act, hence, liable to be charged customs duty”.

Once identified the names and addresses of the owners of auctioned vehicles from the provincial authorities, the same information would be provided to the customs authorities across the province to do the necessary.

“We would certainly be stopping these vehicles on road upon finding them as the owners are bound to pay the duty and taxes,” said the customs sources, holding the provincial authorities responsible for making the owners to under go the hardship in the coming days to get their vehicles legalized.

The provincial authorities, said the customs department sources, sold out the vehicles (31 non-duty paid) without carrying out appraisement of the non-duty paid vehicles, hence the same would need to be done — by the customs authorities — to charge the accurate amount of customs duty and other taxes.