The Pakistan Customs Computerised Clearance System (PaCCS) of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has no specific module to collect/levy sales tax as per values fixed by the Board through valuation notifications on the import of different goods for accurate assessment of the tax.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Wednesday that the Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) PaCCS, Customs House Karachi has submitted its comments to the FBR on the special report of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) on PACCS. The AGP has detected short realisation of sales tax due to non-application of valuation notification by the system.
According to the PACCS authorities, under the computerised clearance of PACCS system there was no specific module to collect/levy the sales tax as per value fixed by the Board. However, to recover the due amount of sales tax on the basis of fixed value, a formula was manually devised reflecting levy of sales tax on ad-valorem basis wherein rate of sales tax was being enhanced manually in the system as against standard rate of sales tax on all such consignments. As such the due amount of sales tax was fully realised as a consequence of fixed value and there is no loss of revenue on this account.
The special study report of the AGP has pointed out that according to various SROs values for the purpose of sales tax assessment at import stage has been fixed for the new PCs (Personal Computers), Pentium, used PCs Pentium I&II, used PCs Pentium-III, used PCs Pentium-IV, used Laptop, computers, notebooks, used laptop USD, computers and notebooks and white crystalline sugar.
The scrutiny of system-generated record (Soft Copy) pertaining to imports for the years 2006-07 and 2007-08 produced by Collector MCC-PACCS Karachi transpired that above mentioned goods for which values for sales tax assessment fixed by the government had been cleared by the system without applying the above mentioned fixed values. Resultantly, government dues were short assessed by the system and deposited by the importers accordingly thus depriving the government from its legitimate revenue of Rs 10.931 million.
Responding to the observations, the MCC PACCS observed that the issue is related to the fixed sales tax on computers and fixed sales tax on sugar. The MCC-PACCS has correctly assessed sales tax on computers in respect of 90 items contained in 32 CRNs. However, in remaining 65 items MCC has re-assessed the CRNs for an amount of Rs 3.14 million. The Departmental Accounts Committee has directed the MCC PACCS to intimate the recovery of assessed revenue as realised. In case of crystalline sugar falling under heading 1701.9910 & 1701.9920, 59 CRNs selected by Audit from MCC PACCS were checked wherein it was found that value was applicable. The position has been verified by the audit department, the AGP report added.