Bureau of Customs sues importers trying to evade taxes

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has warned traders against falsifying documents after a garment importer was caught using spurious papers to avoid paying duties to the government.

Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez said Juliana Octavio, owner of Adventure Trading, presented a fake common effective preferential tariff (CEPT) form to avoid paying the 10-percent duty on 593 packages of fabric she brought in from Thailand on Nov. 10, 2010.

According to Alvarez, CEPT forms give tax-free importation privileges to local importers bringing in certain products from member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) as part of a free trade pact.

“Verification conducted by the BOC post-entry audit group revealed the CEPT form was invalid because it did not bear the signature of the issuing authority,” Alvarez said in a recent news briefing.

Along with Alvarez, Gregorio Chavez, head of the BOC Run After The Smugglers (RATS) program, has filed a criminal complaint against Octavio at the Department of Justice, bringing to 42 the number of cases the BOC has lodged against suspected smugglers since the Aquino administration came into office a year ago.

Alvarez meanwhile also filed a complaint against the general manager of a cable company for allegedly undervaluing fiber optic cables imported by the firm by more than 81 percent.

He said Darren Abcede of Interlite Corp. evaded P3.24 million in import taxes by declaring that the 59,000 kilograms of fiber optic cables imported from the United States only cost from $1 to $2.35 per kg.

A check by RATS showed the cable actually cost $9.46 per kg.

Also charged were customs broker Ronan Raymundo and other unnamed BOC personnel, “who participated in the release of the fraudulent cable shipments.”

The BOC also ordered the confiscation of two container vans of onions worth P2 million imported from China and passed off as juice. With a report from Jerome Aning