LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has quashed Rs407 million sales tax notices issued to two sugar mills and directed the FBR’s Inland Revenue Tribunal to decide the case again.
Tariq Shafi, the owner of Ittefaq Sugar Mills and Kashmir Sugar Mills, in his petition said that the FBR had sent them sales tax recovery notices for maintaining sugar stocks in 2011.
The petitioner’s counsel Advocate Salman Akram Raja argued that the FBR had issued the tax recovery notices without proper assessment and any prior notice to the mills’ management. “The notices were challenged before the Inland Revenue Tribunal that suspended the tax recovery, but directed the mills to deposit 30 per cent amount of the assessed tax with the government. The decision of the tribunal is beyond its jurisdiction,” he said.
However, the board’s counsel told the court that the notices were issued after appropriate assessment.
Justice Shahid Karim directed the tribunal to decide the matter in two months. He also restrained the FBR from taking coercive measure against the petitioner during that period.
