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National Board of Revenue (NBR) chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan on Thursday emphasised creating a business and taxpayer-friendly tax culture by fully automating customs and VAT collection activities.
“This has to be done by making the ongoing automation activities of the National Board of Revenue, such as iVAS, Bond Automation, National Single Window, AEO, Export Import Hub portal, etc., more user-friendly,” he said while holding Customs and VAT Collection Progress and Review Meeting for July at the Revenue Building.
All members of Customs and VAT Division, all Commissioners (in-person & online format) and Directors General and all departmental officers were present, according to an NBR press release issued on late night.
The revenue collection of Customs Houses and VAT Commissionerates for the outgoing fiscal year was presented in the meeting.
The NBR Chairman thanked the officers and employees of all the VAT Commissionerates and Customs Houses who collected more revenue than the previous year despite the country's business and trade activities not being normal in the first 4 months of the financial year and the revenue collection activities not being normal in the last 2 months.
Later, the chairman reviewed the activities of each VAT Commissionerate, Customs House, Bond Commissionerate, Audit and Intelligence, Customs Valuation Commissionerate, Customs Risk Management Commissionerate and Duty Drawback Commissionerate in the previous year and gave clear instructions to take necessary steps to improve business-friendly services and prevent tax evasion.
He instructed the members of the NBR to supervise the field-level activities in a more effective manner.
The chairman attached special importance to the fastest possible clearance of goods by the Customs House.
Instructions were given to regularly send reports to the National Board of Revenue on the amount of additional revenue collected in each case, stating the specific reasons for why the goods were released late.
Similarly, everyone was instructed to send regular reports to the National Board of Revenue on the bond license applications that were disposed of late or were awaiting disposal for a long time.
Instructions were given in the meeting to regularly send reports to the NBR stating the reasons if the bond audit work is not completed on time.
Instructions were given to regularly send detailed information on the specific reasons for the bin locks of import-export agents from the Customs House, Customs Intelligence, VAT Intelligence and Central Intelligence Cell and the amount of additional revenue collected from each such bin lock to the National Board of Revenue.
In the meeting, NBR chairman gave instructions to identify the areas and reasons for the decline in revenue and take appropriate measures to achieve the desired growth.
He asked the Commissioners of the Commissionerates where there was negative growth in revenue collection to know the reasons and gave directions for better performance in the future.
The Chairman gave instructions to release the goods within 1 day, giving due importance to trade facilitation, and to conduct Post Clearance Audit (PCA) if necessary.
Each Customs House was instructed to send regular reports to the National Board of Revenue regarding the post clearance audit.
He called for making the Customs Risk Management Commissionerate effective as soon as possible.
Instructions were given to the Member (Customs Administration) to appoint skilled and experienced manpower in the Risk Management Commissionerate.
The Chairman expressed deep concern over the constant complaints made by the users of the ASYCUDA World system.
He felt that the traders had a strong distrust of the Asycuda system as it was not able to provide the desired quality of service.
Therefore, he informed everyone that an initiative has been taken to launch an alternative software system to the Asucuda system on the model of developed countries.
Once the work of formulating the new system related to customs management is completed, its piloting will be done first. After the successful piloting, all the activities related to customs management will be completely transferred to the new system.
The chairman reminded everyone of the role of the National Board of Revenue in keeping the country's economy and trade running.
Other senior officials present in the meeting emphasized on increasing revenue collection by protecting the interests of the traders.