Raise competitiveness of customs offices: Mahat

KATHMANDU, March 26:

Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat has urged customs officials to strengthen competitiveness of customs points.

Speaking at ´Customs Management and Valuation Seminar´ organized here on Tuesday by the Department of Customs, Mahat said the government won´t best performing staffers to other offices. Mahat said efforts should be made just not meet revenue targets, but to exceed the targets.

Urging customs officials not to encourage under-invoicing at customs points, he said: “Under-invoicing at customs points affect the whole revenue system.” He also asked the officials to be alert against smuggling of goods through their respective customs points.

Share of customs revenue in total revenue collection stands at around 43 percent. Similarly, 60 percent of VAT and 40 percent of excise duty is collected at customs points, according to the Revenue Division under the Ministry of Finance.

The three-day seminar is being organized to identify the problems of custom management as well as harmonize customs valuation at all customs points. Customs officials from 23 customs offices, staff of Post Clearance Audit (PCA) Office as well as private sector representatives are participating in the seminar.

Addressing the seminar, Finance Secretary Shanta Raj Subedi said the government was mulling over increasing customs duty on betel nuts in a bid to discourage its smuggling to India. He also urged officials to control the trend of under-invoicing at customs points.

 “When we compared prices of vehicles imported by diplomatic missions with the same model imported by automobile dealers, we found that vehicles are being under-invoiced at customs points,” he said, adding, “Automobile dealers have been found sending money to the manufacturers from informal channels, bypassing the system of making payment through Letter of Credit (LC).”

Rajan Khanal, chief of Revenue Division under the Ministry of Finance, said better management of border was necessary to control illegal cross-border trade. He suggested to the Department of Customs to increase monitoring to sub-customs offices.

Altogether there are 30 customs offices and 143 sub-customs offices in the country.

Similarly, Surya Acharya, director general of the Department of Customs (DoC), said the government was preparing to issue identification cards for all importers. “We are mulling over allowing big importers to use green channel at the Tribhuvan International Airport,” he added.
According to conservative estimate, there are around 22,000 importers in the country.

He further added that the Department of Customs (DoC), in coordination with the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), was tracing imports of traders who have not filed their tax details.

A total of 7,000 importing firms have not filed tax details for the past six months, according to IRD. These firms make up around 25 percent of the firms registered with VAT.
Tanka Mani Sharma, director general of IRD, said the trend of registering bogus firms would be decreased with the introduction of importer identification cards. “Unscrupulous traders register new firms in the name of their near and dear ones to evade taxes. Introduction of importer identification card will control it,” he added.

Meanwhile, the finance ministry has asked customs offices to reduce arrears at the earliest. The Department of Customs has total arrears of Rs 320 million. This is nearly 40 percent of the total arrears at the Ministry of Finance. Similarly, Tribhuwan International Airport´s Customs Office, Birgunj Customs Office and Bhairahawa Customs Office have Rs 170 million, Rs 70 million and Rs 20 million, respectively, in arrears.

Source: Republica