ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) directed customs collectorates to facilitate trade in payment of duty and taxes till midnight on December 31, 2022.
The FBR issued the directives to the chief collectors of Customs Enforcement-South Karachi, Customs Appraisement-South Karachi, Customs North Islamabad, Customs KP Peshawar, Customs Appraisement-Central Lahore, Customs Enforcement-Central Lahore and Customs Balochistan Quetta.
According to the notification, the FBR directed all field offices of Pakistan Customs to remain open and observe extended working hours till 10:00 PM on Friday December 30, 2022 and till 12:00 midnight on Saturday December 31, 2022 for collection of duty and taxes.
The FBR directed chief collectors of Customs to establish liaison with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and authorized branches of National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) to ensure transfer of the duties and taxes collected by these branches on December 31, 2022 to the respective branches of the SBP on the same towards collection for the month of December 2022.
Prior to this the FBR also announced that the tax offices will remain open on December 30 – 31, 2022 for collection of duty and taxes.
A circular issued by the FBR stated that all Large Taxpayer Offices (LTOs), Medium Tax Office (MTO), Corporate Tax Offices (CTOs) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) would remain open and observe extended working hours till 8:00 PM on Friday December 30, 2022 and till 10:00 PM on Saturday December 31, 2022, to facilitate the taxpayers in payment of duties and taxes.
In this regard, the SBP also issued a notification stating that in order to facilitate the collection of government receipts / duties / taxes, it has been decided that the field offices of SBP Banking Services Corporation (SBP-BSC) and authorized branches of National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) will observe extended banking hours.
The extended banking hours will be till 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM on 30th and 31st December, 2022 respectively.
Accordingly, NIFT has been advised to arrange a special clearing at 8:00 PM on December 31, 2022 (Saturday) for same day clearing of payment instruments.
All banks are also directed to keep their concerned branches open on December 31, 2022 (Saturday) till such time that is necessary to facilitate the special clearing for Government transactions by the NIFT.
