Chairman FBR assures to address tax issues of business community
- July 12, 2020
Muhammad Javed Ghani, Chairman FBR said that he would try to address the tax
related issues of business community so that they could be facilitated in promoting business
activities and strengthening the economy. He said this while talking to a delegation of
Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) that called on him led by Muhammad
Ahmed Waheed, President. Tahir Abbasi Senior Vice President ICCI, Malik Sohail Hussain Chief
Coordinator UBG FPCCI and Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari former Vice President ICCI were in the
delegation.
Accepting the invitation of Muhammad Ahmed Waheed, Javed Ghani said that he would visit
ICCI for an interaction with the business community to know about their tax issues and get
their input for bringing further improvements in the prevailing tax system. He said that efforts
would be made to evolve a taxation system that could facilitate the growth of economic
activities and help in improving tax revenue of the country. He welcomed the suggestions of
delegation members for resolving problems and broadening the tax base.
Speaking at the occasion, Muhammad Ahmed Waheed, President, Islamabad Chamber of
Commerce & Industry congratulated Muhammad Javed Ghani for assuming the charge of
Chairman FBR and hoped that he would take measures to address the key tax issues of
business community and promote the vision of the Prime Minister to turn Pakistan into a fast
growing economy. He said that the current government has made commitments to streamline
the payment of tax refunds, but the process was quite slow due to which the business
community was facing liquidity issues. He said the Covid-19 pandemic has created
extraordinary challenges for the business community and the overall economy and this
situation necessitated that FBR should focus on speedy automation of refunds including
customs duty, sales tax and income tax to ensure that all tax refunds were automatically
transferred to the bank accounts of the concerned taxpayers. He said that another better
option to solve the refunds issue was to allow taxpayers to adjust their payable taxes against
the accumulated refunds. This mechanism would not only address the liquidity issues of
business community; it would also improve the tax revenue of the government.
ICCI President said that under Sec-8B of Sales Tax Act, a registered person was not allowed to
adjust input tax in excess of 90 per cent of the output tax for that tax period, which was not
justified. He said that taxpayers have to deposit 0.10 percent of the sales tax amount in cash at
the time of depositing sales tax returns and stressed that in these tough conditions, FBR should
allow 100 percent adjustment of input tax against the output tax and abolish the condition
0.10 percent cash payment of the sales tax amount while depositing sales tax returns. It would
ease the problems of business community and save businesses from financial troubles.
Tahir Abbasi Senior Vice President ICCI, Malik Sohail Hussain Chief Coordinator UBG FPCCI and
Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari former Vice President ICCI also gave many useful suggestions. They
said that taxpayers should be allowed 100 percent adjustment of input tax as depriving them
of 10 percent input tax was an injustice with them. They said that current difficult
circumstances required that FBR should take maximum relief measures for the business
community so that they could feel facilitated in fostering business and economic activities.
They were of the view that providing facilitation to business community in tax matters would
pave way for early recovery of our economy and steering the country out of current
challenges.