Day: January 5, 2022

Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Dr. Ashfaq Ahmed, on Tuesday, said that the release of the Tax Directory of the Parliamentarians was meant only to ensure transparency.

Responding to a question raised by Senator Farooq H. Naek during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs, Dr. Ashfaq said FBR had released the Tax Directory of the fiscal year 2019 this year, while it would also release the Tax Directory of FY21 in the coming days. He said FBR had released the Tax Directory after the approval of the federal cabinet.

Criticizing the release of the Directory by FBR, Senator Farooq Naek said that the reputation of many respected parliamentarians had been damaged due to the Directory. He said incumbent Finance Minister, Shaukat Tarin, Yousaf Raza Gillani (Opposition Leader in Senate), Senator Taj Haider, and Palwasha Khan were not Senators in 2019, but their names had also been included in the Tax Directory. “How did FBR include their names?”, asked Farooq Naek while addressing Chairman FBR.

The Chairman FBR said that there might be errors from a single person, but the motive of releasing the Tax Directory was only to bring transparency. “We sent SMS to all parliamentarians before releasing the Directory. Many of them responded and made corrections to the tax records,” he explained and added that FBR considered the available record as correct of those who did not respond.

Senator Naek asked if the transparency was only for the parliamentarian. He asked, “What about the NAB and others?”

Dr. Ahmed said these were the fragmented taxes, adding, “Some taxes are collected by the provinces. Some provinces don’t share data with us.”

Senator Musaddiq Malik of Pakistan Muslim League-N said that FBR should have used a prudent way to confirm the tax records. “They may have sent a letter to us rather [than] sending an SMS.”

Senator Mohsin Aziz of the ruling Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf supported the Chairman FBR, saying that FBR had given the names of Senators in the Tax Directory who were not Senators in 2019. The release of Tax Directory is not to malign anyone, he emphasized.

The Chair Senator Talha Mahmood said that corporate and other taxes were not shown in the Directory and only individual taxes were included, so FBR should clear the ambiguity.

The meeting was also attended by Senators Sherry Rehman, Saleem Mandviwale, Saadia Abbasi, Zeeshan Khanzada, Faisal Saleem Rehman, and Dilawar Khan.

Source: Pro Pakistani

In a bid to collect maximum taxes from big retailers, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has made public the list of 1,284 business tycoons who did not integrate their businesses with its Point Of Sale (POS) system, warning them that they will not be eligible to claim the input adjustment tax of December 2021 if they do not comply by 10 January 2022.

The tax collection authority has published the names of business centers, falling in Tier-l Retailers of FBR, who did not integrate their businesses with the POS system. It has also mentioned the jurisdictions, STRN and NTN along with the names of business owners.

The Islamabad Serena Hotel is also among the non-compliant businesses as it did not integrate with the POS system. Surprisingly, the list shows that about 1,000 non-compliant businesses belong to Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Out of the total business tycoons, 720 business centers belong to the jurisdiction of RTO Rawalpindi who did not compliant.

As many as 369 big retailers, who have not integrated their businesses with the POS system, belong to RTO Islamabad, in addition to 33 retailers from RTO-I Karachi, 21 from LTU Islamabad, 20 from RTO Sialkot, and 13 from RTO Quetta.

Out of total identified retailers, 11 are from CTO Karachi, 10 from CTO Lahore, nine from RTO Faisalabad, eight from RTO Peshawar, seven belong to RTO Karachi-II, five from RTO Multan, four from Karachi, four from RTO Sargodha, two from Abbottabad, one from Sukkur, six each from TRO Bahawalpur and RTO Sahiwal.

FBR said that the above-mentioned tycoons must integrate with FBR’s system by the 10th of January 2022, otherwise, upon filing their Sales Tax Return for December 2021, their input tax claim would be disallowed without any further notice or proceedings, creating tax demand by the same amount.

Source: Pro Pakistani

The Ministry of Commerce and Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) released trade figures with two just days gap, but showing huge discrepancies, raising serious questions on the authenticity of this important matter.

Significant differences were witnessed especially with respect to imports data.

According to Commerce Ministry during December 2021, the imports increased by 37.9 percent to $6.901 billion as compared to $5.005 billion in December 2020, reflecting a wide difference when compared to the PBS data which shows that imports were $7.597 billion.

The trade deficit widened by 106.4 percent during the first half (July-December) of the current fiscal year 2021-22 and reached $25.478 billion compared to $12.344 billion during the same period of 2020-21, revealed the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data.

According to the PBS, the country’s exports declined by 5.55 percent on a month-on-month basis and remained $2.740 billion in December 2021 compared to $2.901 billion in November 2021.

The country’s exports increased by 24.7 percent and remained $15.102 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year compared to $12.110 billion during the same period of 2020-21. Imports increased by 65.94 percent during the first half of the current fiscal year and stood at $40.580 billion compared to $24.454 billion during the same period of the corresponding year, stated the PBS.

However, according to the Commerce Ministry, during the first half of the current financial year, exports increased by 25 percent to $15.125 billion as compared to $12.110 billion during the corresponding period of last year.

According to the PBS, the country’s trade deficit widened by 85.38 percent on a year-on-year basis jumping from $2.620 billion in December 2020 to $4.857 billion in December 2021. Imports registered an increase of 52.37 percent on a year-on-year basis and jumped from $4.986 billion in December 2020 to $7.597 billion in December 2021.

Further, exports registered 15.8 percent growth on a year-on-year basis and increased from $2.366 billion in December 2020 to $2.740 billion in December 2021. However, according to the Commerce Ministry, during December 2021, Pakistan’s imports decreased by $1 billion to $6.9 billion as compared to $7.9 billion in November 2021.

According to the Commerce Ministry, exports during December 2021 increased by 16.7 percent to $2.761 billion as compared to $2.366 billion in December 2020, which also differs from the PBS data.

According to the PBS data, the trade deficit narrowed by 2.81 percent on a month-on-month basis from $4.998 billion in November 2021 to $4.857 billion in December 2021.

Imports declined by 3.82 percent on a month-on-month basis and remained $7.597 billion in December 2021 compared to $7.899 billion in November 2021.

Source: Pro Pakistani