The new arrangement has been put in place after the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), going by the Finance Minister´s commitment made in the budget for the current fiscal year, decided to remove the toll barriers from the highways.
Finance Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai had made the promise based on the demand of the traders themselves.
“Instead of relying on the physical barriers for preventing revenue leakage, we have come up with a new ´paper-based´ mechanism to control movement of illegally-imported commodities,” said Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, director general of IRD.
Going by the new IRD directives, traders and transporters of imported goods would first need to receive the commodities declaration form from the customs or revenue office. “Apart from customs and revenue offices, Revenue Investigation Department (RID) can also authorize other bodies to shoulder the task,” said Shrestha.
While such RID-authorized body will approve and issue the declaration form of the consignments being moved, the traders and transporters will need to fax a copy of the same to the similar authorized agency in the destination city prior to moving the vehicles.
The transporters will need to carry a copy of the same as well, and produce it whenever the RID seeks it. Such forms could be sought while inspecting the goods carriers on the move or while inspecting the stocks in the market.
“Since this mechanism means a copy of the form is already in the possession of RID, the traders, transporters and stockists will not be able to walk away by tearing off the forms or arguing that they lost the forms,” said Shrestha.
In the absence of the provision of prior submission of the declaration forms, illicit traders have been abusing the forms.
However, traders have tagged the new provision as complex and sought the IRD to simplify it. IRD, meanwhile, has decided to stick to it.
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