KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has rejected the Constitutional Petition (CP) filed by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) over the sales tax issue with Pakistan Customs-FBR and allowed the Customs authorities to conduct their legal proceedings against PIA for collecting the payment regarding the outstanding dues in terms of sales tax.
The Sindh High Court (SHC) also withdrew the stay order taken by the private airlines i.e. Air Blue and Shaheen International Airline over the non-payment of sales tax on importation of planes.
Pakistan Customs has asked the airlines including PIA, Air Blue and Shaheen International Airline to pay their outstanding dues in terms of sales tax since the time period of year 2011. Reacting on this development, the aforementioned airlines moved to Sindh High Court and took stay order. Subsequently, the Customs authorities also moved to court and presented its view-point in this regard.
The Pakistan Customs authorities were of the view that all these three airlines including Pakistan International Airlines, Shaheen International Airlines and Air-Blue have not yet paid their sales tax of over Rs 1 billion for three years since the year 2011.
On one hand, the airlines were of the view that the air-planes were purchased on lease and no importation has been done in this regard, so no sales tax is being implemented.
Pakistan Customs was of the view that whatever comes from sea, air or land routes must fall on imports and the planes owned by those airlines companies were imported from United Kingdom, Bulgaria and Canada.
Customs authorities further stated that the Customs Duty (CD) has already being exempted on importation of machinery under SRO575. However; the airlines companies should pay their sales tax for the remaining years, as they were paying till the year 2010.
