June 10, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 13, 1427

ISLAMABAD, June 9: The government has introduced five new clauses and amended a few others in the Customs Act, 1969 for regulating the trading regime.

Through the Finance Bill 2006, the new sub-clauses were incorporated in section 18 of the customs act to empower the government to levy an additional customs duty at a rate not exceeding 75 per cent of the value of goods.

A new section 26A was added to the act so that the manner of audit or inquiry or investigation could be conducted for ascertaining the correctness of any declaration or documents in connection with the determination of due liability of any person for the duty and taxes under the act. This is aimed at catering for the policy shift from on-the-spot verification resulting in delays, to a post facto audit.

Under this section, a customs official can summon the person imported or exported or transported or stored or held under customs bond or filed a goods declaration, drawback or refund claim. The relevant person would be bound to produce the records in person before the customs official.

Through another new section 26B, the customs officials would have an access to business or manufacturing premises, registered office, where any goods, stocks, documents or records were kept or maintained. Even the officer may take into custody such documents after having inspection of the all kinds of available records, including sources of business financing.

If a person contravenes the provision of section 26, 26A and 26B, he would be liable to a penalty not exceeding Rs1 million and upon conviction before a special judge, he shall further be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or both.

Similarly, if the goods declaration was not filed within the prescribed period of 10 days, the owner of such goods should be liable to a penalty not exceeding Rs100,000.

Another new section 211 was introduced, which empowers the officer of customs to have access, for the verification purposes, to the business or manufacturing premises or an importer who avails himself of the benefit of the notified reduced rates of the duties and taxes for import of raw materials etc for manufacturing of finished goods. And if any person commits an offence under section 211, such person shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding Rs1 million.

Another amendment has been made to make the defaulter liable to pay surcharge, which were earlier exempted by the superior courts. Another section 25C introduced to address the need of international trade and the new valuation regime. This provision is necessary to combat the menace of group under-invoicing, while remaining within the ambit of the WTO valuation agreement.

Another new section 81A in the act has been made for speedy clearance of goods -- imports and exports -- on execution of bonds by providing legal cover to it. The delay in clearance of goods leads to increase in the cost of doing business.

Through another amendment in the customs act, the dwell time of goods on ports has been reduced from one month to 20 days to ensure expeditious clearance. The extended time of 30 days was reduced to seven days which was allowed under the law after assessment of imported goods for clearance.