ISLAMABAD: As per promise made by Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar, the government has cleared Sales tax refunds of over Rs 23 billion on Tuesday.
Addressing a ceremony held in this regard here at Federal Board of revenue (FBR), Ishaq Dar said that all the refunds were transferred directly to the tax payers’ accounts online to provide maximum facilitation to the business community. The ceremony was attended by a large number of business community members, and officials from FBR and finance ministry.
The finance minister said that during his budget speech on May 26, he promised with the business community that all their sales tax refunds of up to Rs one million would be paid by July 15 while the remaining refunds, would be cleared by August 14. He said the payments were made against Refund Pay Orders (RPOs) issued till April, 2017.
The first promise, he said was fulfilled on July 15 while the second one was being fulfilled ahead of time. He said in total, the FBR cleared 10,439 refund cases worth of RS 26.43 billion in recent two instalments. The Finance Minister said that he always gives difficult targets to FBR, which have resulted in sharp increase in revenue collection.
“The revenue collection during last four years has increased by 73 per cent from Rs 1900 billion in 2013 to Rs 3362 billion in 2016-17”, he added.
Ishaq Dar said the government was committed to take tax to GDP ratio to 15 per cent which, although is a difficult, however a doable task. He said the FBR team was ready to work really hard to achieve the target of revenue collection set for the year 2017-18 with more transparency.
Earlier, FBR Chairman, Tariq Mahmood Pasha said that under the leadership of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, the FBR team was working hard to boost the revenue collection and to expand tax base in the country.
He said with the timely and easy transfer of refund money to the exporter’s account would encourage them to work hard to increase the country’s exports.
Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) President Zubair Tufail thanked the minister for paying the refunds on time.
