The Board of Revenue (BoR) Sindh has issued notices to industries for audit and inspection in the SITE Area. The notices demand that the industries prepare records chargeable with stamp duty and attach a list of 28 documents required for carrying out inspection.
These documents include staff salary sheets, payment vouchers, affidavits, agreements, partnership deed, transfer of allotment orders before lease, allotment orders in respect of plot and flats issued by developers and builders, bank guarantees, bills of entries, exchange and lading, indemnity or security, issuance of terms finance certificates, debentures, issuance of share certificates, charter party, contract agreements relating to execution of work and procurement and cartage of store materials and engineering consultancy services and purchase orders, documents of title in respect of properties owned by the organisation, banking and other documents creating charges on properties, letter of credit, documents of various loans to the employees, partition deeds, policies of insurances and marine policies, power of attorney, promissory notes, release deeds and share transfer deeds.
The notices were issued under section 73 of the Stamp Act 1899 which states that every public officer having in his custody any registers, books, records, papers, documents, or proceedings, the inspections where of may tend to secure any duty, or to prove or lead to the discovery of any fraud or omission in relation to any duty, shall at all reasonable times permit any person authorised in writing by the Collector to inspect for such purpose the registers, books, papers, documents and proceedings, and to take such notes and extracts as he may deem necessary, without fee or charge.
SITE Association of Industry Chairman Abdul Wahab Lakhani said that 30 to 40 industries had received notices this week. He recalled that the BoR had also issued such notices in the last few years but could not succeed in its efforts because the industries were agitated He said that the Section 73, which is referred to for inspection, was applicable to public officers. Private sector enterprises or companies cannot be considered to be public offices, he added. He said that this is a misinterpretation of law.
Lakhani said he failed to understand why a provision of law meant for public offices was being applied on private sector industries. He added that this is highly uncalled for and clearly intended to cause harassment. “It is most unfortunate that the even though the law does not require any such notices the government is trying to create another means of earning revenue off industries which are already crippled” he said.
