KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will cancel Sales Tax Registration Numbers (STRNs) of commercial importers, who have wrongly obtained ‘manufacturing’ status of products to evade taxes at the import stage.
A senior officer of FBR told the media that the Directorate of Intelligence and Investigation Inland Revenue (IR) Karachi has caught many such cases in which importers have shown themselves as importers-cum-manufacturers and commercial importers have obtained the STRNs under the category of ‘manufacturers’.
He said that under the same category, Rs 700 million tax fraud has been unearthed. The FBR officer said that the goods are imported without payment of value addition tax by commercial importers having status of ‘manufactures’ and sold in the open market without going through any manufacturers process.
The detection of the scam would result in deletion of ‘manufacturing status’ from registration profile of involved commercial importers, he added. The tax department will also initiate proceedings of blacklisting the units under section 21(2) of the Sales Tax Act 1990, he held.
