KARACHI: Large Taxpayers Office (LTO), Karachi, has attached 53 bank accounts of Pakistan International Airline (PIA) for the recovery of Rs. 4.6 billion pending tax payment.

According to the officials posted at LTO, Karachi, the national flag carrier is not filing sales tax returns and has become non-filer since December 2020. They said that the tax office had issued 11 ONOs to the airline over non-payments of Federal Excise Duty (FED) since 2017, which has now been piled up to Rs. 24.07 billion.

They said that the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had granted a stay on the FED payment amounting to Rs. 7.98 billion while there were no stay orders on Rs. 16.045 billion tax dues. They said that the outstanding income tax demand against PIA stood at Rs. 2.13 billion, stretching the total outstanding tax payments against PIA to Rs. 26.15 billion.

Furthermore, the officials said that the tax office has attached 53 bank accounts of the airline after winning the case in the appellate forum against the recovery of Rs. 4.6 billion and added that the tax office had so far recovered around Rs. 495 million.

Meanwhile, PIA spokesman said that the tax office had unfrozen the airline’s bank accounts after a meeting between CEO PIA and chairman FBR.

He said that CEO PIA during the meeting informed the chairman FBR that the airline would consult with the federal government for the payments of outstanding arrears.

Moreover, he said that the federal cabinet had decided to freeze the outstanding tax dues from 2016 to 2020 till the completion of the reforms process in the airline however, the LTO, Karachi had generated the tax demands against the cabinet decision for the same period, which he termed as an attempt to damage the airline’s reputation.

When contacted, LTO officials had given no confirmation about the detachment of PIA bank accounts till the filing of this report.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022