ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid Friday informed Senate that different taxes were collected from the subscribers of mobile phones during the fiscal year 2015-16.
He said these included withholding Income Tax u/s 236 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 at 14 percent of charges was collected from mobile phone subscribers all over the country. He said FED at 18.5% of charges was collected from the subscribers if the service is availed in Islamabad Capital Territory.
While provincial Sale Tax was levied and collected by the respective provinces at 19.5 percent in case of Punjab, KP and Balochistan; and at 19 percent in case of Sindh if the service is availed in any of the provinces. He said Telecom companies were declaring losses in their tax returns and hardly declare taxable income hence pay minimum tax and alternate corporate tax only.
He said minimum tax and alternate corporate tax paid or adjusted by different telecom companies for the Tax Year 2015 include Income Tax (Minimum Tax): Rs 5,994 million (Tax Year 2015), withholding Tax (u/s 236), Rs 43,314 million (2015-16) Sales Tax & FED, Rs 1,268 million (2015-16).
Meanwhile, Minister for Industries and Production Ghulam Murtaza Khan Jatoi said that effective measures were being pursued to monitor quality of items being sold at Utility Stores.
As part of such efforts, the minister says in a written reply to the Senate the quality of the commodities was checked at the time of bids and tenders. He said the samples provided by the vendors are thoroughly checked by the Tender Committee and the samples of low quality are rejected.
He said the quality of the commodity is also checked at the time of receipt of stocks at warehouses and the stocks supplied by the vendors are compared and tallied with the samples provided by them at the time of bids and tenders.
The minister said the quality of commodities is also checked at the time of bulk breaking of the same at USC warehouses, adding quality of the commodities is also checked at the time of receipt of supplies from warehouses to stores.
He said no food item is enlisted without certification from PSQCA and Lab tests are also conducted as and when required basis from the laboratory of repute. He said USC has a full-fledged monitoring and vigilance system based at Zonal and Regional Office, the minister adds monitoring and vigilance of the stores is conducted on regular basis.
