Aptma members advised to opt for DTRE scheme

The members of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) have been advised to opt for Duty and Tax Remission Rules for Exports (DTRE) scheme as direct and indirect exporter to avail incentive terms including procurement of inputs without payment of the sales tax, customs duty, excise duty and withholding tax.
The advice was given by Central Board of Revenue (CBR) Exports Member Zafar-ul-Majeed, during the two presentations on DTRE rules, held for Aptma members here at Karachi and Lahore during the week.
According to a press release issued by the Aptma, several member of Aptma would now consider for availing DTRE scheme either on performance or on contract-to-contract basis after the two presentations.
Member (Exports) Zafar ul Majeed, in response to several queries, assured that most of the concerns of DTRE scheme users had already been taken care of wide clarifications so far issued by the CBR.
An exercise was underway to make all clarifications/procedures part of the revised rules to be made available in the forthcoming federal budget, he said.
Aptma Chief, Waqar Monnoo in his welcome address emphasised the need to remove various irritants in the scheme to achieve underlying objectives, including zero-rating of the exports to reduce cost of doing business, and to overcome hassles of duty drawbacks and sales tax refunds.
The present sales tax system had unduly penalised the taxpayers or manufacturers-cum-exporters in terms of pending sales tax refunds, he said.
Monnoo said CBR had been introducing one system after another to make the entire sales tax refund system workable, but each attempt had resulted in the blockage of the refunds.
In order to mitigate the problem, CBR had launched the DTRE scheme for the exporters, he added.
Monnoo pointed out that ever since the introduction of the DTRE scheme in 2001, the department had introduced its procedures along with more than 60 clarifications so far.
He proposed to make procedure and clarifications part of the rules.
Monnoo said there were a number of issues and genuine concerns of the manufacturers-cum-exporters especially from the value-added sector, which were hesitant to join DTRE scheme, and added, CBR had to redress these issues for its successful implementation.
DTRE Director Shahzada Tahir Zaman, DTRE Chief Iftikhar Qutab, CBR assisted the Member (Exports).