KARACHI: All Pakistan Customs Agents Association (APCAA) has raised several practical hurdles hindering the smooth implementation of the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) recently introduced post-payment regime for pre-arrival Goods Declaration (GD) filings.
The concerns were raised during an awareness session held at the Customs Academy of Pakistan, chaired by Chief Collector of Customs (Appraisement) South Wajid Ali.While the APCAA had initially welcomed the post-payment mechanism for all taxes on pre-arrival GD filings, critical operational bottlenecks were now highlighted during the session.
Chief Collector was informed that post-payment amounts currently appear under the “additional duty” head in traders’ profiles. Though this does not affect the Risk Management System (RMS), it remains visible to assessing officers during GD assessment, often triggering additional examination and scrutiny due to the apparently high additional duty amounts, requesting that it should not be reflected under additional duty when assessing officers review trader profiles.
Another major hurdle is the cancellation of pre-arrival GDs in case of short shipments or other legitimate reasons. “Traders cannot file subsequent GDs until the previous pre-arrival GD is cancelled, as financial instruments remain linked to the earlier declaration.”
It has therefore been proposed either allow electronic cancellation of pre-arrival/post-payment GDs without requiring customs department approval, or issue an office order directing priority cancellation of such GDs without file opening to release associated financial instruments.
During the session, the Pakistan Single Window (PSW) domain officer informed that examination messages for pre-arrival GDs are transmitted to terminal operators before vessel arrival.
It has also been requested to issue written instructions to all terminal operators, ensuring priority grounding of containers directly from vessels to examination areas, which would encourage greater adoption of pre-arrival GD filing.
The APCAA hoped that solutions to these issues would significantly enhance trade facilitation, reduce dwell time, and promote effective utilization of pre-arrival and post-payment mechanisms.
