The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has rejected new proposals of the retailer's community to bring changes in the procedures for retail outlets registration under the scheme announced in budget (2014-15). A senior FBR official told Business Recorder here on Tuesday that the retailer's representatives met the tax authorities to discuss different issues of the community.
The issues included sales tax on new retail outlets through electricity bills and discrimination between different categories of retailers along with other issues. However, the proposals were not considered viable and were turned down by the tax authorities, he added.
The retailers are facing numerous difficulties in following the registration process after introduction of two-tier sales tax regime for documentation of the retailers from 2014-15. The retailers have taken up the matter of discrimination between different categories of retailers for the purpose of registration etc, sources added. According to the revised Sales Tax Special Procedure Rules, 2007, retailers shall provide seamless and real-time access of their FECRs data to the Board and also allow onsite physical inspection as and when authorised by the Commissioner Inland Revenue having the jurisdiction.
The retailers falling in any of the following categories shall be required to get registered as a retailer under the Sales Tax Act: A retailer operating as a unit of a national or international chain of stores; a retailer operating in an air-conditioned shopping mall, plaza or centre, excluding kiosks; a retailer who has a credit or debit card machine; a retailer whose cumulative electricity bill during the immediately preceding twelve consecutive months exceeds rupees six hundred thousand and a wholesaler-cum-retailer, engaged in bulk import and supply of consumer goods on wholesale basis to the retailers as well as on retail basis to the general body of the consumers. The retailers operating as a unit of a franchise or any other arrangement of a national or multinational chain of stores shall obtain a separate registration as distinct from the principal. Other retailers shall pay sales tax through electricity bills. Retailers not falling in the specified categories shall be charged sales tax through their electricity bills by the persons making supplies of electricity. Every person making supplies of electricity shall charge and collect sales tax at the rates specified from every retailer having a commercial electricity connection. The registration of retailers based on the said categories was discussed between FBR and the retailers' representatives.
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