Pending amounts of taxes: efforts on to expedite recovery process, FBR tells PAC

Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Triq Bajwa on Wednesday said that the tax authorities are making efforts to expedite the process for recovery of pending amounts of taxes on accounts of various heads. He stated this at a National Assembly's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sub-committee meeting on monitoring and implementation, chaired by Rana Afzaal Hussain, to take up long standing issues of custom duties, withholding taxes, as well as petroleum development levy on brief for audit report for the years1996-1997.
The FBR chairman said that a considerable progress has been made on recovery of pending amounts issues since these were taken up by the PAC. "Why 21-years old Rs 72 million has not been recovered," wondered Achakzai, asking "can this process be expedited swift to save money and timer as a lot of time and money has already been wasted".
The meeting was informed that there was a short assessment of development surcharge of Rs 72 million from days back of April 22, 1996 after Deputy Collector Customs, Multan allowed clearance development surcharge for import of High Speed Diesel Oil (HSD) and Kerosene Oil was reduced. When the matter was taken up by the then PAC, provincial account offices were directed to recover the government dues within three weeks. However, some amount was still pending after over two decades and sub-committee of the PAC was greatly up set over its non-recovery by the tax authorities.
Bajwa said that tax authorities have been collecting Petroleum Development Levy and development surcharge on behalf of Ministry of Petroleum and Ministry of Finance. As there was some confusion with respect to stage the amount was to be collected and now the Ministry of Petroleum has cleared that duty was to be collected at ex-bonded stage.
He added that rate of development surcharge for the import of HSD and Kerosene Oil was reduced from 22nd April, 1996. However, Collector Customs Multan had allowed clearance of these commodities from the bonded tanks at the reduced rates even though their bills for clearance were filed before the introduction of the reduced rates.
The PAC directed authorities to recover amount allowed on reduced rate and in response to its directive, the tax authorities stated that out of total Rs 72.894 million, an amount of Rs 5.644 million not due and an amount of Rs 5.213 million was recovered and verified by the Audit. However, there is a balance amount of Rs 62.037. The sub-committee directed the FBR to hold a departmental accounts committee to minutely look into the issue and decide its fate.
The chairman FBR also informed the committee that considerable progress has also been made on recovery of Rs 28 million on account of customs duty from two firms for import of palm oil. "We are going to auction their properties to recover the loss of custom duties," he added. The PAC sub-committee also decided that law division's final opinion would be sought on what was pointed out by the audit as irregular exemption of Rs 19.851 million on import of plant and machinery which were also locally manufactured. the chairman FBR said the decision was taken on the directive of the then prime minister. Sub-committee took up audit brief on the audit report of the FBR for the years 1996-97.