ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue's Large Taxpayers Office (LTO) Islamabad has imposed penalties of Rs1 million each on big retailers including a bakery and a shoe retail outlet for failing to connect their retail outlets with the FBR's Point of Sale (POS) system.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Wednesday that the POS integration was mandatory for all major retailers of the country, as prescribed under the Sales Tax Act, 1990, and was used for sharing real-time reporting of sales of those retailers to the FBR, and to monitor proper collection of the sales tax.
Metro Shoes, is a major retailer of ladies branded shoes, and bags, having around 40 sale outlets in the country, spread across 24 cities of Pakistan. Tehzeeb Bakers has eight branches spread in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
Both retailers fall under the category of Tier-1 retailers, as defined under the sales tax law. Under the sales tax law, they were required to integrate and connect all their branches with the FBR's integrated POS system for live monitoring and reporting of their sales. However, despite repeated notices and reminders from tax office, they showed persistent non-compliance and failed to integrate their outlets with the computerised POS system to avoid reporting of their actual sales to the FBR.
It has been learnt that sufficient opportunities of hearing were given to the retailers, but the retailers failed to comply with the Tier-1 retailer requirements under the law, hence, a penalty of Rs 1 million has been imposed on them under the law.
The deadline for all Tier-1 retailers in the country to connect their points of sales (POS) with FBR was 31 August 2020. However, some Tier-1 retailers have still not fulfilled their legal responsibility and are avoiding installation of POS system, to suppress their sales and to evade payment of sales tax to the national exchequer.
Sources have confirmed that penalties are being imposed on other defaulters also in this category in the coming days, and those retailers that do not comply even after imposition of penalty, their sales outlets and business premises will be sealed by the LTO, after lapse of statutory period.
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