The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday took notice of the alleged irregularities in tax payments of National Logistics Cell (NLC) during a review of records submitted by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
PAC Chairman Syed Khursheed Shah, while reviewing the FBR’s records, said that no one was above the law including NLC.
The FBR officials briefed the committee that NLC had deducted Rs245 million in terms of tax from Habib Construction, however, it failed to deposit the said amount in national exchequer.
While reviewing the FBR audit report, the committee discussed the pending tax payments worth Rs55 billion.
The FBR officials informed the committee members that the payments are pending because courts have issued stay orders against the tax defaulters. On this, the PAC chairman expressed concern and said that “courts should think before issuing stay order in such issues”.
Shah said that the committee will ask Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar to take notice of the pending cases in various courts and expedite their hearings so that the pending tax payments could be cleared.
Later in the day, NLC issued a clarification that Rs245 million tax deducted from Habib Construction by NLC has already been deposited in the national exchequer.
It alleged that the report submitted in PAC by FBR was not updated, and claimed that there was no outstanding tax against the NLC.