Carrying forward its investigations into evasion of customs duty by companies while importing jets, the customs department is examining over 200 such cases amounting to several hundred crores of rupees. Back of the envelope calculations reveal that the companies have evaded over Rs 6,000 crore in duties and penalty.
In fact the customs department has already received bonds amounting to Rs 203.35 crore and bank guarantees amounting to Rs 889.58 crore from companies for releasing some of the aircraft.
The customs department has been investigating into the matter after it found several large corporate houses of evading customs duty when importing aircrafts into the country. It has already sent show cause notices to a number of companies including the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) controlled Reliance Commercial dealers Ltd; Reliance Transport and Travels Pvt Ltd ?belonging to Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, GMR Aviation Pvt Ltd, East India Hotels, Airmid Aviation Services and International Air Charter, which is owned by Indiabulls. The department had also seized 13 aircrafts belonging to these companies.
Meanwhile seven other defaulting companies have paid duties amounting to Rs 55.67 crore immediately. These include Jindal Steel Works, Essar Group?s Futura Travels Ltd, Raymond Ltd and Priviledge Airways.
Companies can import such aircrafts virtually free of duty if they are to be used only for non scheduled (passenger) services or non scheduled (chartered) services. ?But aircrafts and their spares imported for personal use attract customs duty at close to 25%,? Anoop Swarup commissioner customs said.
Apart from importing aircrafts without paying duty, these companies have also been importing spare parts and machinery for them for which they have not paid taxes, Swarup said.
Swarup said the department may also investigate scheduled operators which have been using aircrafts for private use. Specific investigations and scrutiny of bills of entry filed during 2007-08 for importing aircrafts and other related documents revealed that companies used different modus operandi evading duties. While some companies get a non scheduled operator permit (NSOP) for the aircraft and use it for personal use, others float a company which imports airplanes and charters it to the mother company. In other cases, the department found that companies after importing aircraft were selling, leasing or chartering them to those who did not have an NSOP.