FTO Orders FBR to Work With State Bank of Pakistan To Resolve Exporters’ Issues

The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to liaise with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to resolve the genuine grievances of exporters.

In an order on Wednesday, FTO said it is evident that exporters, particularly when conducting open-account bank transactions, are encountering problems in transactions with Banks in some cases. Furthermore, the difficulties faced by the exporters relating to the value addition on the basis of the assessed value of imported goods under the export facilitation scheme (EFS) also require decisive attention by FBR, FTO said.

The complaint was filed against various Collectorates under Section 10(1) of the Federal Tax Ombudsman Ordinance, 2000 (FTO Ordinance) for not removing the check of Valuation Ruling in the WeBOC system at the import stage for goods that are to be exported under the Export Oriented Unit Rules, 2008.

During the hearing, the complainant raised two issues:

1. Banks, in the case of open account transactions, are withholding payments to their suppliers due to discrepancies between the declared value and the value assessed by customs authorities at the time of filing GD for the import of raw materials under EFS, and
2. The value addition calculation at the export stage is based on the assessed value of the import GD. As the assessed value in the import GD is determined by Valuation rulings and is often higher than the declared value at the time of importing raw materials for use in export goods, the system restricts the export of finished goods if the export value is lower than the assessed value of imported goods/raw materials plus 10% value addition, even though the actual value addition in export goods is consistently higher than the declared value during import.

In order to resolve the genuine hardships faced by exporters, the FBR is directed to instruct the Member Customs (Operations) to resolve the difficulties faced by the exporters in the afore-mentioned valuation aspects, in consultation with the Directorate General of Customs Valuation, on priority, as per law.