A passenger returning from abroad can bring gold ornaments up to 100 grams duty free. The government has been providing this facility in the baggage rules for an age. This time, the definition of gold ornaments has been added to the baggage rules to prevent misuse of this facility.
In the budget speech, the finance minister said that there is a growing trend of bringing in crude gold (24 carats) that looks like ornaments in jewelery for the purpose of evading customs duties from various countries in the Middle East. For that, he proposed to add the definition of gold ornaments in the baggage rules.
When asked, a customs officer on duty at Shahjalal International Airport told Prothom Alo on condition of anonymity on Thursday that the rate of gold bar bangles weighing 100 grams from Middle Eastern countries has increased recently in the name of gold ornaments. The duty of every gold bar taken is four thousand taka.
Accordingly, the customs duty of 100 grams or about 8 and a half tolas of gold bars is 34 thousand 293 taka. There was nothing the customs officials could do about this duty evasion; Because there was no definition of gold ornaments. For that, the definition of gold ornaments has been given in the new rules. As a result, this facility will not be misused now.
In the budget, the definition of gold ornaments has been added in the ‘non-travelling passenger baggage rules’. It has been stated that gold jewelery means designed and wearable ornaments made of gold of 22 carats or less.’
Due to this new definition, the possibility of making 100 gram chunky bangles out of 24 carat gold bars has ended. Now a passenger can bring real gold ornaments of maximum 22 carats.
However, in this budget as before, a passenger can bring gold bars weighing 117 grams by paying customs duty. For every 11.664 villages, a duty of four thousand taka has to be paid. Accordingly, to bring a gold bar weighing 117 grams, you have to pay 40,000 taka customs tax. There is no opportunity to bring more. There is a provision to confiscate any passenger who brings more gold bars.
In this year’s baggage rules, the opportunity to bring gold bars and gold ornaments has been stopped for passengers under 12 years of age.
A customs officer told Prothom Alo that the government is taking various initiatives every year to prevent gold smuggling through the airport, although the smugglers do not stop. They are also finding loopholes in the law and coming up with various strategies. This time, this strategy of smugglers to bring gold bars in the name of ornaments has also been stopped.