Finance minister says revenue collection witnessed 17.7 percent growth up to February 2014
To ameliorate the problems of small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs), the government has decided that their sales tax refunds must be paid immediately.
This was stated by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar while addressing the Chief Commissioners at the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Headquarters on Thursday.
He directed FBR for sales tax refunds up to Rs 500,000 within three weeks and refunds from Rs 500,000 to Rs 1 million will be cleared by April 15, subject to verification and due process.
He said that it would benefit around 26,000 clients of the total 36,000 refund cases and the remaining large sum claims would be processed through queue system separately.
The minister said that FBR is one of the most important organs of the government, as most of the expenditure of the government depends upon the revenue collection of this department.
He said for the purpose of performing their duties well, the chief commissioners and other officers have been selected on merit and are being isolated from external pressures.
He added, “In response we expect the chief commissioners to rise up to the challenges and give sterling performances.”
The minister praised the FBR chairman and his team on their performance and announced that the revenue collection in first eight months of this year is Rs 1,348 billion as compared to Rs 1,145 billion in corresponding period of last year.
He said that revenue collection witnessed 17.7 percent growth up to February 2014, which is reasonably good, adding that Pakistan’s tax to GDP ratio currently stands at a meager 8.5 percent, and the government has decided to improve it.
“While we appreciate the queue that has been established for sales tax refund, we will make this one time exception to facilitate the SME sector,” he said.
The finance minister instructed the chief commissioners for putting in more efforts in order to develop Pakistan and make Pakistan prosperous in line with the vision of the prime minister.
He said that there should not only be increase in the tax net, but all the leakages must be plugged. He said that corruption and malpractices would not be tolerated.
The FBR chairman sought Dar’s approval for signing MoU regarding adjustment of sales tax on services against sales tax on supplied goods with the Sindh Revenue Board and Punjab Revenue Authority.
With the minister’s approval, the MoUs were signed regarding adjustment of Sales Tax on services against sales tax on supplied goods with the Sindh Revenue Board and Punjab Revenue Authority.
The agreements were signed by FBR Chairman Tariq Bajwa, Punjab Revenue Authority Chairperson Iftikhar Qutub and Sindh Revenue Board Chairman Tashfeen Khalid Niaz.
With the signing of these MoUs, a long outstanding issue regarding cross adjustment of sales tax on goods and services levied by the federal and provincial governments has been settled.
