Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry has urged the federal finance minister and Chairman Federal Board of Revenue to restore the final tax regime for the commercial importers in the larger interest of the industry. LCCI President Malik Tahir Javaid in a statement on Tuesday also urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to provide relief to those taxpayers in audit who could not file their income tax return within the stipulated time period due to reasons beyond their control.
The FBR has thrown all those taxpayers in audit who even filed their return just after a day of the given deadline. The business community could not file their tax returns because of inactiveness of IRIS system, he added. They were facing serious problems while working with the FBR online services as their online requests did not go through the online portal and could not retrieved by the concerned authorities, he said.
In view of the ground realities, FBR should give audit exemption to the late-filers of income tax, he added. He further said the commercial importers were treated under final tax regime and allowed audit exemption on the payment of six percent withholding tax but in the federal budget 2018-19, this regime is replaced with minimum tax.
The reassessment of raw materials and opening of audit cases of commercial importers are also proposed in the federal budget 2018-19 which are sheer injustice with the commercial importers, he added. He said that bringing commercial importers into minimum tax regime would increase the cost of raw material that would jack up the cost of doing production and Pakistani products would be struggling more in the international market.