Seema Shakeel, Chief Commissioner Inland Revenue (LTU), has said that the taxpayers should resolve their issues directly with tax authorities instead of going for unnecessary litigations as Tax Officials are available to guide taxpayers in resolving their issues. In response to Shaikh Shakeel Ahmed Dhingra's proposal, she said that the facility of alternate dispute resolution is functional and is providing settlement of disputes free of cost to the taxpayers in a short span of time.
Speaking at the meeting of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and industry (FPCCI), she elaborated that LTU Karachi which is the main revenue arm of FBR has Rs 52 billion stuck up in court cases. She said that the refund issuance procedure has been improved in the past few years as evident from the fact that FBR has released a sufficient amount of refunds during the first two months of current fiscal year.
Regarding consulting the concerned trade body before raid on the business premises she said, "It is difficult to apprise the trade body of raids due to confidentiality of the matter." She further said the Sales Tax registration was grossly misused for obtaining bogus refunds in the past; however, she appreciated the proposal of granting temporary registration of Sales Tax.
Irfan Ahmed Sarwana, Acting President of the FPCCI referring to the continuous decline in exports from USD 25 billion in 2014 to less than USD 20 billion in 2017, attributed it to the high cost of production of our indigenous goods due to variety of reasons including inordinate delay in payments of refund claims to exporters as it makes them suffer from liquidity crunch and therefore, they are compelled to take loans at high mark-up rates to meet their export orders well in time.
The FPCCI Acting President lamented, "In spite of Finance Minister's assurance, the refund claims whose RPOs have been issued before April 2017 are not paid as yet." The Acting Chief of FPCCI said that when nil Sales Tax Return Filers such as exporters, sole distributors etc., claim their refunds, they as a penalty are mainly served with the audit notices to discourage them. He proposed to dispose-off the audit within a stipulated time frame as over 200,000 audit cases were lying pending for settlement.
The Acting President of FPCCI referring to the complicated and cumbersome procedure of Sales Tax registration and deregistration due to which a large number of applications are lying pending, proposed that the trader should be temporarily registered within seven days of filing his application so that he may resume his normal business activities, however, the tax officials may continue to keep their verification process at their end and may revoke such provisionally issued STR certificates if verification report is not favorable.
S.M. Muneer Former Chief Executive (TDAP) and Past President FPCCI said that FBR only knows to collect taxes but does not facilitate the taxpayers. He said that due to high cost of doing business in Pakistan, the industrial sector which provides employment opportunities is gradually depleting which would result in severe law and order situation, inflation etc. He urged the Chief Commissioner LTU to issue exemption certificates on the same day.
In response to a query from Saqib Fayyaz Magoon, Vice President of FPCCI, the LTU Chief replied that whole stock should be declared by a Taxpayer in his return and should not hide anything for fear of incurring further tax.-PR
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