Customs asked to determine duty as per valuation rules

FE Team | Published: December 15, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Doulot Akter Mala
The revenue board has asked the customs authority to determine the duty on imported goods according to the customs valuation rules in order to resolve the recent controversy over the import price.
The revenue board's instruction came following the request of the Chittagong Customs House (CCH) seeking specific direction to resolve growing dissatisfaction of importers on determining the valuation of goods against the backdrop of declining commodity price.
At present Clean Reports of Finding (CRF) prices are much below than that of the lowest price protected in the Assycuda++ database. The CCH was taking additional time to complete the procedure of price determination as per the declared prices, the customs officials said
In a letter, the CCH commissioner Md. Shah Alam requested the board to give a clear guideline to reduce risk of shortfall on import revenue earning following strong resentment of the importers and complexities on clearing bills of entry.
Following the request, a team of customs department recently visited the Chittagong port recently to address the problem.
"The customs house has to bear the brunt of collecting less duty in line with the downward trend of commodity price. We have sent a report to the CCH to fix the valuation rule," said a senior customs official of NBR who visited the CCH.
"It is now imperative to clear the bills of entry through the on-line system for facilitating trade. The customs house has scrutinised the product prices arising from the declining trend that caused delay in the release of goods from ports," he said.
According to the customs valuation rule, section-4, the customs house will have to determine the prices of imported goods as per transaction value.
The CCH has reviewed the justification of the import value as it found the prices much below the rate of reference price or lowest price quoted in the port, the official said.
"With the sharp decline of fuel prices, the prices of its byproducts recently dropped significantly going below the prices of the lowest value quoted in the CCH," the NBR official said.
Importers also declined to accept the CCH fixed import duty and termed this as harassment. The importers requested the CCH to fix import duty as per declared transaction value as shown in the CRF, he said.
"There is available data about the decline in prices in the website, CRF and other sources. From now on, the CCH will fix the duty on that price as per customs valuation rule rather than scrutinise other sources to increase duty collection," the customs official said.