MULTAN: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Member (Operations) Dr Muhammad Irshad has asked the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) to provide list of ginners who had not received refunds so that payments could be made to them against their refund claims.
Addressing a gathering of ginners at PCGA House, he said payments were being made against refund claims valuing up to Rs 5 million. Moreover, he added that the finance minister had already promised to clear dues under refund claims before July 2016 no matter how old they may be.
Dr Irshad also sought details regarding textile companies after ginners complained that the textile sector had cut withholding tax worth billions from ginners but did not deposit the amount with FBR. And, on the other hand, FBR officials were issuing notices to ginners, PCGA chairman Nawab Shahzad Ali Kan said.
Dr Irshad proposed to form a committee comprising two officers each from RTO Multan and Bahawalpur which will hold meetings every month to discuss problems being faced by ginners and resolve them. He asked tax officials not to issue notices to ginners till the time the committee decides their matters. He further ordered that the notices issued already should be stopped.
Dr Irshad said tax officials were not as bad as being portrayed. He said people from trade and industry were investors and earning hands and taxes paid by them were utilized on governance, development projects, social sector initiatives and to pay government employees salaries.
He added that tax payers were honourable people and promised to solve their problems. He urged ginners to send their proposals regarding law or rules that could benefit them without causing loss to exchequer adding that it was appropriate time as budget proposals were under discussion these days.
Bahawalpur Chief Commissioner Ghazanfar Hussain said on the occasion that he was aware of problems of ginners of Multan, Bahawalpur and Sindhi zone adding that proposals have been sent to the government to solve ginners’ problems.
