January shipments undervalued, misdeclared

03/31/2009

Documents on the 82 shipments of highly dutiable goods that were consigned to only one Manila-based company for the whole month of January 2009 showed how they were grossly undervalued and in a number of cases misdeclared to evade payment of correct taxes and duties to the tune of millions of pesos.

The group, calling itself Krusada Kontra Korapsyon at Katiwalian sa Customs, said that it is in possession of documents that would show the extent of irregularities practiced at the various sections of the Manila International Container Port (MICP) in North harbor over the processing of entries of shipments for clearance and release.

The documents showed that the mentioned 82 shipments of highly taxable goods ranging from pre-fabricated building materials to metal products, household wares, furniture, to garments and footwear, to name only a few, included the Customs values and the taxes and duties imposed, plus the sections they were processed and cleared.

They showed that the mentioned shipments consigned to King Enterprises and brokered by a certain Arnel Asuncion were grossly undervalued and the taxes and duties imposed were way, way below as they were mostly pegged at Customs values ranging from more than a peso to as high as more than P1,000.

The gross weight along of the contents inside each container van, if it would be used as the basis for the imposition of taxes and duties, not to mention the luxury items with tariff of high as almost 50 percent of many of them, would be impossible to tax them as mere “tokens” without attracting suspicions of wrongdoing.

The group also disclosed that shipments that are supposed to be processed in one particular section are made to “jump” to another section, which does not have the authority to process them. This trick is called “jumping jack” where those assigned in the so-called “favored section” are “friendly” to the importers and brokers.

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry is also validating the documents preparatory to taking the appropriate action against those involved.

The PCCI is tasked to check on the shipments of general merchandise in particular to help the bureau collect the correct taxes and duties of every arriving shipments at the ports.

How the PCCI failed to check on these shipments is still uncertain. Conrado Ching

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