KARACHI: Ruling out the possibilities of a minimum budget in the ongoing financial year, Chairman FBR Asim Ahmed said that the board will attempt to overcome the revenue shortfall, expected in the coming months through policy changes.
Speaking at a meeting with the business community at the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), he said the FBR had surpassed its budgetary revenue target for October 2022 but the revenue shortfall is expected in the coming months, which will be dealing through policy changes.
Furthermore, he said that the board is aware of traders’ issues, is going to propose a simplified income tax return to address all their grievances by next week.
Chairman FBR said that they had discussed return-related issues with Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) and Member IT and Member tax policy were going to sit with the KTBA team to resolve these issues.
In response to the issue raised by the business community regarding raids being conducted by customs anti-smuggling organizations, he said the FBR had taken up this issue seriously and requested the KCCI members to facilitate the board and forward complaints in this regard.
Meanwhile, Member Customs Mukaram Jah said that the board had issued directives to the field formation to resolve the issues being faced by the importers during the transportation of cleared goods.
He said that all field formation was directed to check the goods after permission from the concerned additional collector and if an examination of goods is required, it would be conducted by a deputy collector or assistant collector.
Furthermore, he said that additional collectors were also ordered to verify and crosscheck with the clearance collectorate before initiating any legal proceedings in case of detecting any discrepancies found during the examination.
Earlier, Zubair Motiwala, Chairman BMG requested the chairman to allow the import of solar energy equipment in order to overcome the energy crisis, adding that the board should also give tax relaxation in the clearance of around 650 imported vehicles stuck at port. He said that notices were being issued to the taxpayers when tax refunds on industry power bills were applied and requested the chairman to look into the matter.
Moreover, the KCCI during the presentation requested the chairman to withdraw a three percent value-added tax on raw materials at the import stage and also revert the income tax on the import of pulses at the previous stage to 2 percent from 3.5 percent to facilitate the masses at maximum during high inflation.
Chief Commissioner LTO Shahid Baloch, Chief Collector Yaqoob Mako and other FBR officials were also present on the occasion.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022