Sunday, November 25, 2007 Anti-smuggling campaign ‘hurting’ small-time traders
SMALL-time legitimate used motor vehicle traders are claiming to be affected by the government’s drive against smuggling.
In a position paper, the Chamber of Customs Brokers Inc. (CCBI) said that while the government is right in running after smugglers, their efforts should not affect small legitimate traders.
CCBI, led by its president Edward Cilo-Cilo, submitted the position paper to Bureau of Customs Port of Cebu District Collector Ricardo Belmonte.
The group cited the issuance of a memorandum order, which provides that only importation of used chassis and engine declared for rebuilding purposes will be issued a certificate of payment (CP) of duties and taxes, otherwise only an official receipt (OR) shall be issued.
Rule
Under this rule, CCBI said importation of engine or chassis only shall be considered as a completely-built unit (CBU) with as much tax due as a whole unit.
Section 12 of the memorandum also provides that importation, selling or trading of engine and chassis is certainly not feasible anymore because only an OR will be issued as proof of payment of duties and taxes.
The CCBI noted that the Land Transportation Office (LTO) will only honor a CP, so if one buys a truck engine to replace his old and non-functional truck engine, either the application to change engine will not be approved or the newly replaced engine will not be registered.
“The LTO only honors the CP and the OR will not be honored by its computer program,” the CCBI said.
The CCBI said that if a rebuilder imports engine or chassis, the presumption is that he will assemble it and that under the memorandum, he should be assessed taxes for a CBU.
Most of the legitimate rebuilders who are registered with the Department of Trade and Industry are also engaged in selling engines or chassis only either to individual truck owners or to used replacement parts dealers.
Whole unit
“With the (memorandum), where an importation by a rebuilder of engine or chassis is taxed as CBU, the engine or chassis would now be assessed as one whole unit. It would be too costly to change engine with tax added into its costs equivalent to a whole vehicle,” the group said.
The memorandum was issued to prevent unscrupulous importers from making it appear that they imported the engine, chassis and body separately and assembled it here even though the vehicle arrived in Cebu as a CBU.
However, the CCBI said that in the process of addressing the smuggling problem, small legitimate traders of used transport vehicles and replacement parts have suffered collateral damage.
“Importation, selling and trading of used parts most especially engine and chassis has not only become so hard but impractical. (The memorandum) has threatened to kill small traders and importers,” the CCBI said. (EOB)
