LAHORE (May 09 2003) : The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) while accepting the demands of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) has removed certain anomalies existing in the Duty and Tax Remission for Export (DTRE) regime and agreed to amend the relevant rules to facilitate the exporters.
During a meeting with the PHMA here on Thursday, Member CBR (Exports) Mumtaz Haider Rizvi agreed to reduce the number of documents required for submission to the collectorates from 21 to mere seven.
He also agreed to the PHMA proposal that documents required by the Sales Tax Department would not be demanded for DTRE by the Customs officials.
It was also resolved with the consent of the exporters that under the Rule 196/C of the DTRE only necessary documents should be demanded by the collecotrate from the exporter to prove that he/she was a bona fide exporter.
However, the PHMA will take the responsibility to prove genuineness of the exporter by certifying his/her credentials and would also be responsible in case of any discrepancy.
Rizvi, while accepting another demand of the PHMA regarding submission of ST registration certificate, said there would be no need for any other supporting documents for the DTRE.
The CBR member assured the PHMA that he would soon issue a letter making aforementioned amendments, an official said.
Another long standing demand was also met by the member regarding reducing the limit for value of the quantity of export and it was unanimously agreed to reduce the existing value by half for a period of one year.
Accepting another PHMA demand, member CBR also agreed to replace the word “firm contract” with “purchase order”.
He said all these amendments would take effect in eight to 10 days. However, he urged the exporters to opt for the DTRE regime to get rid of the hassle of sales tax refund.
Rizvi promised that he would go out of the way for clearance of early sales tax refund of those exporters who would enter the DTRE regime.
He informed the meeting that the pace of shift to DTRE was disappointing as in two years only 600 applications have been approved, while just 300 people have registered for the DTRE.
To a question, he said that during the last year the CBR had paid Rs 45 billion as sales tax refund, while this year, so far, Rs 35 billion have been paid.
He also informed the meeting that all the problems of the exporters would be removed when the whole process gets computerised.
“During the last four months, we have been working on computerisation of the system and hopefully, in next 15 to 20 days, 27 spots of in 37 cities will be inter-linked through computer network,” he said.
The meeting was attended by PHMA North Zone Chairman Adil Butt, Shahzada Alam, PHMA former chairman, Central Zone, and a number of exporters. Additional Collector (Exports) Junaid Akram was also present on the occasion.
