Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance, has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to enforce Point of Sale (POS) registration forcibly in the markets across the country.

The directives were made during a meeting between Hafeez Sheikh and FBR officers held on January 1, 2020.

Sources said that Sheikh during the meeting showed serious concerns over snail pace of registration of traders in the POS integration exercise.

It has been decided during the meeting that field formation would take affirmative measures on immediate basis and communicate the compliance to the FBR.

Moreover, sources said that under the directives, the field formation would send enforcement teams in the market and enforce POS registration forcibly in non-compliant traders and added that Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) would establish control rooms to monitor registration process/POS integration and subsequent activities of traders.

Sources said that field formation would also enforce filing of IT returns of traders/retailers by due date and commissioners were also ordered to submit daily enforcement progress report to the FBR regarding enforcement actions in the market/areas falling in their respective jurisdiction.

Replying to a question, sources said that FBR would weekly evaluate the performance of the commissioners on the basis of submitted reports and they would be graded accordingly and added that field formation would also ensure that FBR logo to be placed on retail outlets, which were integrated in the system.

Meanwhile, official sources, on a condition of anonymity, expressed disenchantment over the said directives, saying that the enforcement of POS registration forcibly in non-compliant traders could only be possible when FBR was providing POS machines to the trade.

Moreover, they said that despite having sense about the ground reality, the authorities had issued such directives, which the sources termed nothing but it may sabotage the whole exercise of POS registration.

They said that if the FBR wanted to make this exercise successful, the board instead of planning to deal with the non-compliant traders with iron hand should facilitate them to get POS registration.