The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has arrested one of the prominent garment manufacturers over the charge of committing tax fraud since 2012; it was learnt here. According to official sources, the action was taken by Intelligence, Investigation & Prosecution Cell, Zone - I of Regional Tax Office (RTO)-III on a tipoff, which revealed that proprietor of the said manufacturing unit and his other associates were involved in tax fraud through online and retail selling of garments without payment of due sales tax.
In order to prove the veracity of the information, the department has conducted the inquiry which disclosed that the accused person had got registered a sales tax unit and was also enrolled as exporter with no declared manufacturing unit in the FBR database.
They said that accused person had four undeclared retail outlets in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Faisalabad respectively and also running an online store actively and added that the accused garment company had filed 'Nil' monthly sales tax returns from July 2012 to January 2016 in e-portal and from February 2016 onwards, the accused person was a non-filer.
Moreover, they said that the analysis of the bank statements and information had assisted the investigation team to establish that the accused registered person was knowingly filing nil monthly sales tax returns in order to evade sales tax liability, which directly came under the ambit of tax fraud and added that the accused person, who was now on seven-day remand, along with other associates had provided a financial shock of Rs 6.11 million to the national kitty. Further investigation was underway.