Rs 2,000 M Vehicle Duty Fraud: A Story Full Of Half-Truths
By Nagananda Kodituwakku –January 4, 2016
Nagananda Kodituwakku
Today, one English newspaper ‘Ceylon Today’ reported that over 2 billion rupees of ‘revenue’ has been lost by Customs on ‘undervalued’ vehicles. Relying on the information given by some Customs Officers the newspaper accused Director General of Customs, Chulananda Perera for ‘connivance’ in this colossal ‘fraud’.
The objective of this piece of writing is to respect the readers of their right to know the truth behind this whole episode and not to discredit or award credit to any. I will try my best to make this presentation in a very simplified form, enabling the learned reader to comprehend the whole issue.
Legal duty of customs
The Customs Department is the major revenue contributor of the government. And it is not out of place to mention that this department has produced some incredibly genuine officers as well its share of utterly corrupt officers. The primary duty of Customs is the collection and protection of government revenue and also to act as an agent at the border to enforce all restrictions and prohibitions as provided by various laws.
Levies are recovered on transaction value
All levies are charged on the ‘transaction value’ as defined by Article 1 of the Schedule E of the Customs Ordinance, which is the ‘primary basis’ for the customs valuation.
Stringent penal sanctions against abuse
The law provides stringent penal sanctions against any person presenting a FALSE valuation for customs purposes. This includes the forfeiture of the commodities and followed by a fiscal forfeiture of treble the value of the goods. (Section 52 of the Customs Ordinance).
Utterly corrupt Customs Valuation regime Read More
