KARACHI: The country’s textile exporters on Friday said that the “excessive and unjustified” delays in the GST refunds have made them “highly perturbed”, calling the non-release of repayments a “violation”.
“All requests and reminders to the FBR for urgent release of refunds remained unheard,” Chairman, Pakistan Apparel Forum, Muhammad Jawed Bilwani said adding that the refunds delays are causing liquidity problems to the exporters.
He said that the textile exporters are “highly perturbed” over excessive and unjustified delays in the GST refunds against approved Electronic Refund Payment Orders (ERPOs) claims, which he termed, a violation of Rule 39F of the Sales Tax Rule 2006.
Citing an FBR official, he said that the federal coalition government is unable to release Sales Tax refunds, which has left exporters “upset” and “worried”. “Textiles exporters question as to why their GST payments have been mismanaged and utilized by the government elsewhere,” he said.
The exporters felt “penalized” by the unreleased tax refunds that made them face financial problems leading to a disruption in export production, he added.
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In line with the rules, he said that the sales tax refunds should be released within 72 hours after filing of the claims, alleging the government of a failure to comply with accordingly.
“Textile exporters are stranded in the middle of nowhere and cannot decide about the future of their businesses in a scenario when the global business is facing a slowdown,” Bilwani said.
The foreign buyer, he said, asked the country’s textile exporters to either stop the under production orders or slow down the output process.
“Several cases of cancellation of export orders are also reported causing colossal financial losses to exporters,” he said, adding that the difficult situation has made small and medium exporters feel a high sense of “insecurity and uncertainty”. Bilwani pleaded to Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Senator Ishaq Dar Finance Minister for an immediate intervention to release the sales tax refunds.
This sector, he said, is the backbone of the country’s economy and exports with employing most labours and exceptionally urban women workers.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022