Customs deals likely to stop duty evasion

Doulot Akter Mala | Published: January 11, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

Government authorities have decided to sign customs deals with many countries of the world to check duty evasion, done mainly by means of smuggling in goods and invoice tampering, official sources said.Â Â
The under-and over-invoicing tricks are also allegedly applied in money laundering-the smuggling out of funds, euphemistically called 'capital flight'.
For an effective control of the financial offences, Bangladesh would join the global trade partners with separate bilateral trade agreements.
China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the USA, Indonesia, the Philippines and the European Union (EU) countries have been selected for signing the customs deals.
The decision on the issue was finalised in an inter-ministerial meeting Thursday at the National Board of Revenue (NBR) headquarters.
Currently, Bangladesh has such accords with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries and Turkey.
A senior customs official said negotiations with Mexico, Qatar, Iran and Sri Lanka are already on to sign similar deals.
He said although the SAARC agreement is in place but bilateral agreements with the countries are needed to resolve bilateral issues bilaterally.
"We have also shared work plan with India to consider the issue," he said.
The customs wing of the NBR recently finalised a draft of the deal styled 'Cooperation and Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters'. The draft has been reviewed in the inter-ministerial meeting.
Apart from NBR officials, the meeting was attended by officials of the ministries of Finance, Foreign, Commerce, Shipping, and Home and the Bangladesh Bank.
The draft of the agreement would be sent to the customs of the selected countries through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their consideration, he added.
If those countries agreed to join hands together, then the customs wings would start formal negotiation with them, he said.
"The countries will be selected on the basis of volume of bilateral trade with Bangladesh," he added.
According to the draft agreement, contracting countries and regions will exchange information with one another. The countries will also extend technical and administrative cooperation to check duty evasion through external trade.
The countries would share information relating to import-export of goods, suspects in smuggling, under-and over-invoicing and other trade-related matters.
A contracting party will, either on request of other party or on its own initiative, provide information related to planned, ongoing or completed smuggling and customs offences, to requesting country.
Duty-evasion and money laundering -- allegedly using under-and over-invoicing of goods as a tool -- has been a major concern of the government amid rise of the volume of international trade.
Customs officials said there is no specific study on loss of revenue through such invoicing tricks and smuggling.
Information sharing on customs matters is important to know trade pattern, volume, respective customs laws of the countries to check the two-pronged problem: duty evasion and smuggling.
"A contracting country will send experts and witness, documents and other materials considered essential for the application of the customs laws in the other country," the draft deal reads.
They will also provide administrative assistance in recovery of customs claims and detect harmful and smuggled products.
The countries will impart training to customs officials of other countries to build capacity in prevention and investigation against smuggling and violation of customs law.
doulot_akter@yahoo.com