LAHORE: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) is introducing a rule to be called ‘Delivery of goods without payment of sales tax’ in order to facilitate exporters and avoid pile up of refunds.
Collector Sales Tax, Lahore Region, Muhammad Nazim Saleem revealed this while briefing members of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on different steps being taken to improve refund payment, audit, registration of new taxpayers and make the system taxpayer-friendly. The meeting was also addressed by LCCI President Mian Misbahur Rehman and Vice President Sheikh Mohammad Arshad.
The Collector said the new law would hopefully be introduced in a week under which exporters would be allowed to purchase any raw material without paying sales tax against certain assurances or guarantees to the department. It would save the exporters from the hassle of claiming refund at a later stage.
He said after assumption of charge at the Lahore Collectorate, he had completely revamped the human and material resources to ensure speedy disposal of refund cases.
Muhammad Nazim urged the businessmen to avail of the forum of Alternative Dispute Resolution Committees chaired by private sector people to resolve any dispute on any case.
He said the department itself had selected around 200 cases at different stages of litigation to get them resolved through these forums.
He said they were even ready if somebody came to them and said certain objections raised by the department to a claim were not correct and certain were correct, the department would accept the amount declared by the claimant and after approval from the CBR, the case would be disposed of.
Earlier, in his address, LCCI President Mian Misbahur Rehman said the core problem faced by the business community was delay in refund cases, which was directly hitting the financial position of exporters.
“Refund claims are kept pending by the Collectorate on false excuse that member companies are not responding to the objections raised by officers concerned.”
He said the situation had further aggravated because newly posted officers at the Lahore Collectorate looked shy of releasing refunds. “The situation needs immediate attention as pending refund claims are piling up day by day,” he added.
