Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) Chairman Javed Kayani has said that the industry is being maligned after waiver of NTN and CNIC conditionality by FBR. He said that as a matter of fact Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) on July 26th, 2011 had asked for suggestions in the proposed amendment for Sales Tax and Excise Duty Returns and subsequently issued detailed explanation to frequently asked questions in the print media. PSMA had gone through all the new proposals and wrote a letter to FBR on August 16th, 2011 in response.
Kayani in his letter said, “The new proposed sales tax return form contains controversial provision of submitting National Tax Number (NTN) or Computerized National Identity Card Number (CNIC) for sales and purchases made from unregistered persons, which has no legal backing in the Sales Tax Act, 1990.”
He added after letter was sent to FBR it was decided that in view of the peculiar circumstances of the sugar industry implementation of SRO 821 dated 06-09-2011 shall remain suspended with respect to manufacturers of sugar as every individual mill deals with thousands of growers and buy sugarcane directly from the farming community. Also, after this announcement the prices of sugar have gone down instead of taking an upward trend. Currently it is around Rs. 68 – 70 per kg ex-mill which includes carrying cost of one rupee per kg per month. Therefore, making a profit of Rs 25 billion on 5 million ton of annual consumption is absolutely baseless.
