Stakeholders Friday raised questions over the implementation of recently issued clarification by the FBR regarding the application of serial 26 of section 33 of Sales Tax Act 1990. Items listed in the Third Schedule are being assessed at the retail price at the import stage from July 1, 2019 with the restriction to print retail price on each article.

Importers after the said measure showed their resentment to the FBR, stating that goods, which were shipped before its implementation and arrived at ports without printing of retail price, could not be de-stuffed from containers to affix stickers at ports.

Later, the board had issued STGO No.102 and allowed the clearance of third schedule items till July 31, 2019, without printing of retail price subject to condition that importer shall declare retail price for each items and goods were assessed for sales tax on such declared retail price and the said relaxation was further extended to August 31, 2019 through STGO 103/2019 for the goods imported from North and South America if the bill of lading is prior to June 30 2019.

Commenting on the issue, tax expert and practitioner Munawar Manekia said the recently issued clarification was quiet surprising as it empowered commissioner to inspect importers' place to verify either the requirements of undertaking were fulfilled or not. He said that this practice would encourage human interaction, which was against the FBR policy to curtail the interaction between taxmen and taxpayer and added that FBR in this clarification did not provide standard format of undertaking, which would be provided to customs authorities by the importers.

Furthermore, he said that in many cases, importers cannot hold goods for 10 days in order to maintain smooth business supply chain and FBR was still unable to mention any Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in the case of manufacturers, who what he believed were facing serious hardships with this clarification. He also urged the FBR to look into the matter and take remedial measures to facilitate the trade at maximum.