Misuse Of Carnet Facility
NBR asks BRTA not to issue registration to 117 cars
The National Board of Revenue has requested the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority not to issue registration to 117 luxury cars brought by tourists mostly foreign nationals of Bangladeshi origin in the country under the carnet de passage facility and sold by them in the local market illegally, NBR officials said. Carnet is a special facility under which tourists can bring (import) their used cars in the country without paying duties on condition that they will send back (export) the cars within one year.
The NBR last week wrote a letter to the BRTA as part of its effort to bring the abusers of the facility under law and to ensure revenue collection from the importers of the cars, officials said.
They said the BRTA had also been requested to cancel registrations given by this time to such cars and to take measures for ensuring collection of duties from the importers, they said.
They said the revenue authorities had also agreed to an Anti-Corruption Commission proposal to declare the current owners of six such cars clear after collecting applicable taxes as they were not the original importers of the cars, rather they bought those from other parties.
The NBR has also issued demand notice to 106 foreign nationals mostly of the UK for paying applicable duties ranging from Tk 1 crore to Tk 4 crore, revenue officials said.
Few months back the Chittagong Customs House asked Royal Automobile Club of UK, which issues carnet certificate for tourist, to assist the CCH in collecting duties from the abusers of the facility.
The CCH also informed British high commission in Dhaka about the issue. But no side is yet to respond to the customs authorities’ move, officials said.
‘Though the NBR has taken several attempts to collect applicable revenues from the importers of those cars and bring them to book, no significant result is yet to be seen,’ a high NBR official told New Age on Sunday.
‘The ACC is also investigating the matter,’ he said adding that the ACC had detected six such cars with different owners.
In an investigation conducted in May, the NBR found that a total of 315 luxury cars including BMW, Mitsubishi Pajero, Mitsubishi Shougun Sport, BMW X5 Sport and Mercedes entered in the country under the carnet facility.
Of them, 117 cars were not sent back, violating the condition of the facility and were sold in the local market illegally.
Another 70 cars remained stuck at the Chittagong port as the importers of those cars declined to release the cars by submitting bank guarantee to the NBR.
The NBR lost more than Tk 200 crore in duties because of the non-export of those cars which are now plying the streets of the country.
After the investigation, the NBR along with the ACC has been trying to find out the owners of the missing cars and collect revenues, officials said.
The NBR will arrange auction for selling the 70 cars remained stuck at the Chittagong port, if the importers do not send the cars back.
-With New Age input
