The FTO progress report stated that “while security-related aspects of the scam are yet to be quantified, the colossal loss of revenue, assuming that these containers carried the usual smuggling-prone items, has been estimated to be over Rs60 billion. - File photo

ISLAMABAD: Federal Tax Ombudsman Dr Shoaib Suddle said here on Friday that transit-related smuggling has registered a staggering drop of 60 per cent, and the investigation is yielding over Rs1 billion per month in additional revenue for the national exchequer due to diversion of smuggling-prove items to regular import channels.

Dr Shoaib Suddle was talking to newsmen here on Friday during which he released the 2011 progress report of FTO. Dr Suddle said that the impact of FTO investigation on local industry, which was dying due to the flood of 'duty-free' smuggled items, has been phenomenal.

The FTO progress report stated that “while security-related aspects of the scam are yet to be quantified, the colossal loss of revenue, assuming that these containers carried the usual smuggling-prone items, has been estimated to be over Rs60 billion.”

FTO Shoaib Suddle said that the ongoing follow-up investigation has led to detection of at least 28,802 commercial containers and a further 3,542 containers imported in the name of Isaf/Nato that went 'missing' between January 2007 and October 2010, and the numbers is still rising.

In early 2011, the FTO submitted the 'container scam' investigation report to the Supreme Court.

Moreover, the Federal Tax Ombudsman helped tax-payers get Rs7.89 billion during 2011 as against the refunds worth Rs7.08 billion made during 2010.

The amount included Rs606 billion in 455 income tax cases, Rs570 million in 107 sales tax cases, and Rs81 million in 15 customs cases. The tax-payers also received a sum of Rs6.16 million in compensation for delayed payment of refunds in 81 cases.

Under suo moto jurisdiction, the FTO got settled 181,880 duty draw-back customs cases involving refunds of Rs6.63 billion during 2011 as against 194,056 refunds of Rs4.9 billion in 2010.

The average time taken to decide a complaint was brought down to 60 days.

In 2011, the FTO received 1,390 individual taxpayer complaints of which 706 pertained to income tax, 349 to customs, 328 to sales tax, and 7 to federal excise duty. Of these, 1218 complaints were decided by Dec 31, 2011.

Of the decided complaints, 1,053 ended up in favour of taxpayers.