The Collector of Sales Tax Enforcement has said that all pending sales tax refund claims of the members of Pakistan Leather Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (Plgmea) would be cleared before Eid-ul-Azha.
The assurance was given to Plgmea Chairman Fawad Ijaz Khan, who with his team, called on Collector Khwaja Tanveer.
The Collector informed the Plgmea delegation that presently gold category refund claims, filed up to December 20, were being processed, while the ordinary claims filed up to October 15, 2003, had been processed.
He said that many refund claims of the exporters were deferred due to the blacklisted suppliers, who are not filing returns as per the sales tax rules.
Fawad suggested that the list of the blacklisted suppliers, pertaining to the leather garment industry, should be provided to the Plgmea for onward distribution among the members so that they were cautious in dealing with such suppliers.
The Collector asked the Plgmea chief to form a sub-committee to look after the finalisation and implementation of the capping issue for Sales Tax Refund regarding chemicals used in leather garment production.
This committee would streamline the capping concept and devise appropriate procedure, he said.
Fawad suggested names of the Plgmea members for the committee, and said that the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) should be represented on the committee by the leather expert of Input Output Co-efficient Organisation (IOCO), a cost accountant and two officials of the Sales Tax Collectorate.
Khwaja Tanveer informed the Plgmea delegation that the CBR was further streamlining the sales tax refund rules to ensure speedy payment to the genuine exporters.
The new rules were based on risk assessment of the exporters and they would be categorised as high, medium or low risk exporters according to analysis of their refund claims, he added.
Fawad requested the Collector to take the Plgmea into confidence before categorisation of the exporters in green, yellow and red categories.