LAHORE: A parliamentary committee has formed two sub-committees of traders and exporters to talk with Federal Board of Revenue on CNIC condition and tax refunds issues.
The National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affair, which met under the chair of Faiz Ullah, MNA, has discussed the problems being faced to exporters due to delay in releasing of income tax refunds by the FBR.
The FBR Acting Chairman Nausheen Javaid Amjad, informed that FBR has frequently issued income tax refunds and there were no hurdles/barriers at all. However, she suggested that a Committee of exporters may be appointed to discuss and resolve the technical issues of Form “H” with FBR; therefore, the Committee offered the exporters to give the nominations in this regard.
The exporters nominated the following Industrialists and Traders for the said proposed Committee, Sohail Pasha, Chairman, Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA), Hafeez Pasha, President (PTEA) and Khurram Tariq.
The Committee has also the matters being faced by the export units, local industries and traders in respect of electricity tariff imposed by the Government. The Committee was informed by Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) that levy of tariff on electricity falls under the purview of Ministry of Energy (Power Division). The stakeholders from export industry, local industry and traders raised their issues owing to imposition of electricity tariff. After thread bare discussion, Abid Lodhi, CEO, Power Purchase Agency, briefed the Committee about the imposition of tariff charges. However, the Committee expressed its dissatisfaction on the response of Ministry of Energy (Power Division) and unanimously directed the said Ministry to take the matter of electricity tariff charged by the Government to Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) for future implementation. The Committee also emphasize that the burden of new interpretation should not be put on exporters, who are a lifeline of the Pakistan Export Industry.
The Traders from Faisalabad informed the Committee about the hurdles being faced by the traders due to obtaining of CNIC copies from buyer. They were of the view that said condition has destroyed the business in the country. The Acting Chairman, FBR clarified that why FBR was asking for CNIC. The Committee appreciated the role of FBR and directed the FBR to resolve the said issue with the consultation of the traders, accordingly traders themselves proposed the names of the following traders:- Rana Sikandar-e-Azam, Aslam Bhalli
The meeting was attended by MNAs Makhdoom Syed Sami-ul-Hassan Gillani, Sardar Nasrullah Khan Dreshak, Mr. Jamil Ahmed Khan, Mr. Faheem Khan, Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, Mr. Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh, Mr. Ali Pervaiz, Dr. Aisha Ghaus Pasha and Ms. Nafisa Shah, besides the senior officers from Ministry of Finance, FBR and SBP.
