STGO for Tier-1 Retailers: KTBA terms inclusion of small traders ‘unjustified’

KARACHI: Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) has termed the inclusion of small traders in the Sales Tax General Order (STGO) for Tier-1 Retailers ‘unjustified’, saying that the FBR has set only turnover criteria to implement the Point Of Sales (POS).

This was stated by the KTBA representatives at a meeting held with the officials of the Large Taxpayers Office (LTO) at the KTBA office on the other day.

The meeting was attended by Nisar Ahmed Burki, Additional Commissioner Inland Revenue (IR), Mukhtiar Ahmed Shar, Additional Commissioner IR, Anees Ahmed Memon, Deputy Commissioner IR, and Khush Ahmed Din, Senior Auditor while Muhammad Zeeshan Merchant, President, KTBA, Syed Faiq Raza, General Secretary, KTBA and others.

Zeeshan Merchant suggested that those who were integrated with POS should automatically be excluded from the purview of section 8B of the Sales Tax Act, 1990 as prescribed vide SRO 344(I)/2020.

Furthermore, he said that FBR should launch a large-scale campaign for educating Tier-1 Retailers and the general masses regarding the usefulness of bringing Tier-1 Retailers on POS.

For this purpose, a unified committee to the extent of all field offices within Karachi must be constituted to discuss and resolve POS issues and weekly discussions and joint seminars should be conducted.

Moreover, he said that to implement POS, media campaign in the form of electronic media, social media, affixing of flyers at common places must be ensured to create awareness among the masses and added that reasonable time of four months must be given for implementation of POS to the business committee.

He said that SRO 779(1)/2020 needs a Tier-1 Retailer to be a registered person with Sales Tax meaning thereby a taxpayer has to get itself registered in Sales Tax first to implement SRO 779(1)/2020.

He said that the companies providing POS machines licensed by the board were creating issues for the retailers and the FBR should ensure providing POS machines to avoid such issues.

Moreover, he said the department must show grace in granting extension in the filing of the sales tax returns for those taxpayers who were integrated with POS and were now facing problems in their filing of ST return. He also recommended sector-wise profiling to achieve success in the POS implementation exercise. Earlier, Nisar Ahmed Burki, Additional Commissioner IR explained the main points and advantages in the implementation of POS by the Tier-1 Retailers.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021