The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Customs Department has seen a relatively smooth Value-Added Tax (VAT) roll-out despite some minor hiccups, its assistant comptroller said yesterday.    

  Anthony Scriven told a seminar hosted by the VAT Education Task Force that there had been numerous changes at Customs caused by the VAT administration process.

“For instance, when goods were brought into the country they were charged Customs duty on what we called a  Cost, Insurance, Freight (CIF) value, all incorporated into  one,” Mr Scriven said.

“Based on the introduction of VAT that has changed to where the Customs duty is actually charged on what we call a transactional value; the actual cost of the goods. Then you add the duty, and any other ancillary charges like processing  fees and environmental fees, and you get to a landed cost.”

Mr Scriven added: “ Value-Added Tax is charged on the total cost. In addition to that, the Customs Department doesn’t give VAT exemptions. Those are done by the VAT office.

“Our duty is to make sure our IT system is up to par and all of our forms are changed to accommodate the introduction of VAT. We have done all of that. I would say the Customs Department did very well on the introduction of VAT. We had our hiccups like everyone else but it was nothing  major. It didn’t stop  the collection. All of our officers were trained on what their roles are.”

    With regards to incidents of fraud, Mr Scriven added: “It’s only been one month so far but we have what we call a post-clearance audit section which audits all transactions at Customs.

“They haven’t had a  chance to look at all of these things yet, but if there is any such actions where the duty was defrauded, it would mean the defrauding of VAT, and when they go through the documents they should be able to make a determination if Customs duty was defrauded and, ultimately, if VAT was defrauded.”

   Minister of State for Finance, Michael Halkitis, said last month that the Customs Department collected just under $11 million in VAT at the border in January, and  was expecting to average $15 million per month in collections this year.