ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) and the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament (PAC) are going to meet today (Wednesday) to resolve the issues pertaining to a huge amount worth Rs 261971.18 million.
This amount has to be deposited to the national exchequer by the FBR officials but is lying pending due to some inevitable reasons. In today’s meeting the high-ups of all three bodies will deliberate on the possible means and mechanism for the recovery of this huge amount.
The settlement of issues will cast significant impact on the total tune of revenue collection because of the huge quantum of amount involved in this issue.
An official source at FBR told Customs Today that the biggest amount lying pending was Rs 55733.73 million which had not been recovered from taxpayers in 695 cases during the fiscal year 2012-13 to 2015-16. However, tax authorities recovered Rs 2957.20 million but Rs 3559.91 million is still pending with the other parties. In this case, the source said that FBR had already sped up recovery process of Rs 4866.99 million.
The source further said that Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited under the jurisdiction of Large Taxpayers’ Unit Lahore and Karachi charged unaccounted for gas (UFG) as expenditure in cost of sales.
As result profit and income was reduced in the tax years 2011 to 2015 and resulted a loss of Rs31190.55 million to the revenue, but now the FBR under the section 21 of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA), has challenged the claim of UFG which provides a proviso that claim must be not admissible and required to be taxed accordingly.
The source named another major case involving Rs 27474 million where two taxpayers under LTU Rawalpindi did not file Income Tax returns under the plea that the taxpayers were in the status of federal government being attached department.
However, later it was found they did not enjoy any right to be exempted from payment of withholding tax; therefore, the source said that FBR had started recovery process the pending amount.
