The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has not received any intimation from the National Tariff Commission (NTC) for last five months for collection of anti-dumping or countervailing duties, as the NTC is unable to impose such duties on the request of domestic industry at present. Sources told fbr times on Wednesday that the Model Customs Collectorates (MCCs) of the FBR have the legal authority to collect anti-dumping or countervailing duties from the importers. This has been done on the directions of the NTC. The duty has been collected by the FBR and deposited in the relevant account of the NTC. The anti-dumping or countervailing duties has not been made part of the FBR collection. However, incomplete quorum of the NTC team has resulted in a standstill situation and there is no check on dumping of imported items. The FBR had received NTC letter on the imposition of duty on import of tiles from China last April. MCCs of the FBR collected the duty for a period of one month. Later, the duty was challenged in courts in May on the grounds of incomplete quorum of the NTC. The NTC had withdrawn the said duty and FBR had stopped its collection as per decision of court. During the last five months, the FBR has not received any new directions for collection of such duties from the NTC. According to sources, certain importers are benefiting from the situation. On one hand, the FBR is facing issue of under-valuation on the import of goods and on the other non-imposition of the anti-dumping or countervailing duties is benefiting the importers involved in dumping of imported goods. These benefits to certain importers are causing serious injury to the domestic industry. The FBR is suffering revenue loss due to the under-valuation of goods at the import stage whereas NTCs inability to impose anti-dumping or countervailing duties is also causing serious problems for the domestic industry. The FBR needs to immediately revise customs valuations under the customs rulings particularly in case of items dumped in the country. Sources said that legally NTC needs at least a chairman and two members for taking decision against dumping of import goods. Under the law, the commission shall consist of a Chairman not below the status of Secretary to the Federal Government and two members not below the status of Additional Secretary to the Federal Government to be appointed by the federal government. The quorum of the NTC would only be completed when a Chairman and two Members are working in the commission, ie, three senior officials. On the other hand, since July 2014 there is no permanent NTC Chairman to head the commission, the acting charge has been given to a member of the NTC for looking after day to day work of the commission. However, due to incomplete quorum, the NTC cannot timely take decisions to impose anti-dumping or countervailing duties. Recently, the government has sought applications for the appointment of new NTC Chairman till September 30. It is yet to be seen that how much time the process would take for completion of the legal formalities for appointment of the new chairman of NTC. As per decision of court, permanent chairman has to be appointed to run the affairs of the commission.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 07:37:17 +0000
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