Bond Requrement

Provisional Assessment:-

Once goods declaration is submitted in the prescribed form (Bill of Entry or Shipping Bill ) containing all the relevant information/details and along-with all the relevant documents, the duty leviable on the imported goods or export goods, if any, is assessed by the Customs officer. Sometimes, it is not possible to assess the duty due to non-availability of some relevant information/document or any other reason. Withholding clearance of goods in such cases may cause hardship to the importers by way of payment of demurrage/detention charges, disturbance in production schedule and other financial losses. Similarly in exports, delay in clearance may cause cancellation of export order, increase in interest liability and other financial losses to the exporters. To meet such exigencies, provisions have been made in section 18 of the Customs Act, 1962 to assess the duty provisionally and allow clearance of the goods by taking a bond with appropriate security.

Conditions for allowing provisional assessment

The provisional assessment may be resorted to in following situations:

In above situations, pending the production of such documents or furnishing of such information or completion of such test or enquiry, the proper officer of Customs may order that the duty leviable on goods be assessed provisionally. The importer (or exporter), has to execute appropriate bond and furnish requisite security to the satisfaction of officer for payment of the deficiency, if any, between the duty finally assessed and duty provisionally assessed. On final assessment of duty in case of goods cleared for home consumption or exportation, the amount paid provisionally is adjusted against the duty finally assessed. If the amount so paid falls short of the duty finally assessed, the importer or exporter has to pay the deficiency; however, if amount so paid is in excess of duty finally assessed, the importer or exporter is entitled to a refund. In the case of goods being warehoused, if duty finally assessed is in excess of the duty provisionally assessed, the proper officer of Customs may require the importer to execute a bond, binding himself in a sum equal to twice the amount of the excess duty.

Terms of the Bond:-