Board of Investment (BoI) did not get a green signal from the concerned ministries over its proposal of zeroing the sales tax on the import of CNG/LPG buses. According to the minutes of the meeting of Cabinet Committee ON Investment (CCOI) held on January 10th under the chairmanship of the prime minister after nine years, BoI did not get through over its proposal that the sales tax on the import of CNG/LNG buses may be subject to zero per cent. Ministries of finance, commerce, and industries opposed the said proposal of BoI, while ministry of production endorsed the proposal.
Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) informed the committee that the government has introduced a well considered sales tax regime in March 2011, and sales tax is actually paid by the consumer not by the company, therefore, the policy for import of public transport should be non-discriminatory between petrol, diesel, and CNG fuels. Commerce minister stated that availability of CNG must be ensured before allowing any exemption for CNG buses, while ministry for petroleum informed that there is no CNG available and its price is likely to go up in the next few months, so there should be no discrimination on the basis of fuels. Secretary finance endorsed the view point of FBR. Finance minister stated that CCOI is a very big forum to consider a $9m project of import of CNG buses; therefore, a committee of two or three people may be formed to look into the proposal of sales tax exemption. Resultantly, the PM decided that a committee of secretary petroleum, secretary finance and chairman FBR should look into the proposal. Chairman BoI informed the committee that total 111 buses have been released, and they can be converted into LNG also. He said when the agreement was made there was no sales tax, and the sales tax was imposed in June 2011. He further informed that the subject summary was circulated to the ministries of finance, commerce, production, industries and FBR.
