BOC conducts audit on motor vehicle imports

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) is conducting an audit on liquidation and assessment of motor vehicle importation for the last three years to pinpoint responsibility on how the government lost billions of pesos in taxes and duties.

Customs Commissioner George Jereos ordered the creation of an Audit Task Force that will focus its investigation on the application of the transaction value insofar as the imposition of taxes and duties were concerned.

It was established based on initial inquiry that thousands of imported vehicles were released from the Customs zones merely on the strength of certificates of Authority to Release Imported Goods (ATRIG) issued by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

The issuance of the of BIR-issued ATRIGs, which superseded the policy of using the Blue Book and Japanese Book, in determining the correct value of an imported car, caused the government billions of pesos in lost revenues.

The ATRIG certificates were issued by the BIR based mostly on the value of the vehicles the importer or importers declared which was way-way down below or less than 50 percent of the values in the Blue Book for American-made cars and Japanese Book for Japanese-made cars or CARO for European cars.

The Vehicle Importation Compliance and Monitoring Unit (VICMU), which controlled the release of imported vehicles on the strength of BIR-issued ATRIG certificates was headed by lawyer Ramon Balite, whose appointment as technical adviser to then Customs Commissioner Antonio Bernardo had lapsed a few months ago.

The task force will also look into the effectiveness of the VICMU in the exercise of its functions over the assessments made on the thousands of imported vehicles that were released from the Customs zone.