ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) assured the lawmakers of looking into the issue of different rates of withholding tax for industrial and commercial importers.
In this regard, Member Customs Muhammad Zahid Khokhar assured the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue that he would take up the proposal of committee with FBR Chairman Tariq Mahmood Pasha to find out a middle way.
In the light of description of Income Tax Policy Chief Shabirul Ejaz to the committee about the rates of WHT for the industrial and commercial importers, the committee recommended that industrial importer would have to pay 2% adjustable WHT at import stage for raw material falling under chapter 25 to 55 and no exemption certificate would be issued to industrial importers. Similarly, commercial importers will have to pay 4% WHT full and final on import of raw material under Chapter 25 to 55. Rest Regime of WHT will remain the same which is for finished product.
Minister of State for Finance and Revenue, while responding to the observations of the members of the committee, elaborated that different rates of WHT were imposed on both kinds of importers of raw material just because of the fact that industrial importers were filer and used to pay full tax as well as were faced auditing process by the FBR. On the other hand commercial importers of raw materials were not supposed to be filers and did not face any sort of auditing procedures by the FBR. That was why, commercial importers were supposed to pay little bit higher rate of WHT.
NA committee met here with Qaiser Ahmed Shaikh in the chair to discuss the updated status on the recommendations of the Standing Committee with regard to suggestions/proposals received from different stakeholders. The committee discussed the proposals received from different stakeholders including All Pakistan Cables & Conductors Manufacturers Association. The Committee recommended to FBR to arrange a meeting with the stakeholders of industrial and commercial importers at the earliest.
The Committee recommended that suggestions received from real estate, construction sector and Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) may be forwarded to FBR for favorable consideration.
