A Member of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has asked the tax authorities to consider the proposal to impose fixed amount of sales tax per litre on petroleum products including high-speed diesel (HSD) and petrol. An FBR official told Business Recorder here on Friday that currently 16 percent sales tax is being charged on the value of the POL products.
There is an increase or decrease in sales tax collection depending upon the fluctuation in the prices of the POL products. If there is a persistent decrease in the international prices of the POL products, it would have direct negative impact on the sales tax collection. Any global increase in the international prices of POL products would improve sales tax collection.
The proposal is to fix amount of sales tax on all POL products including HSD, petrol, light diesel oil, kerosene oil, JP-1 and JP-4 etc, taking into account the prevailing market price of petroleum products. If the government fixes sales tax per litre on petroleum products, it would not have any serious impact on the overall sales tax collection in case of any major decrease in global prices. In this connection, the FBR can work out fixed amount of sales tax per litre on POL products. The fixed tax per litre on POL products would not affect the sales tax collection despite any major decrease in prices of such products globally.
It has been further argued that the fixation of sales tax on POL products would avert any major revenue loss during a fiscal year. The overall revenue collection of the FBR is primarily dependent upon the crude oil prices in the international prices. A major chunk of sales tax at the import stage is coming from POL products and any downward fluctuation would have direct negative impact on the sales tax collection.
However, the proposal of the FBR Member has not been seriously considered by the tax authorities and the present system of collection of sales tax on petroleum products would continue at both the import stage and domestic consumption/supplies. It is important to mention that sales tax collection from POL products globally was discussed during the last Board-in-Council meeting.
The petroleum products are the main revenue generating source of collection of sales tax domestic. The collection from POL products was increased by 16.4 percent during July-March 2010-11. The sales tax collection from POL products was Rs 98.410 billion during July-March 2010-11 against Rs 84.572 billion in the corresponding period last fiscal.
Like sales tax domestic, petroleum products are the top revenue generation source of sales tax imports during July-March 2010-11. It contributed 35.5 percent of the collection of sales tax imports. The growth of 8.2 percent in the collection from POL products was mainly due to higher growth in the imports of motor spirit, furnace oil and JP during July-March 2010-11. The sales tax collection on the import of POL products was Rs 75.127 billion during July-March 2010-11 against Rs 69.462 billion in the same period of previous fiscal year.