Pkrevenue.com

Author: Mrs. Anjum Shahnawaz

  • FPCCI demands only three Eid holidays

    FPCCI demands only three Eid holidays

    KARACHI: Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on Monday demanded the government of reducing Eid holidays to three to avoid business and economic losses.

    The apex trade body expressed displeasure over yet another set of SOPs and Public Holidays on account of Eid-Ul-Fitr announced by NCOC without consulting business, industrial, and trade community of Pakistan. 

    Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo, President FPCCI, has demanded that industries and markets should only be closed for 3 days on account of Eid-Ul-Fitr; otherwise, there will be irreversible loss to already struggling businesses and huge shortfall in tax collection will further decelerate the economic activity.

     Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo maintained that ports, customs, and required banking services for them should not even be closed for 3 days during Eid-Ul-Fitr; as exports are as necessary for survival of Pakistan as airports and hospitals. Even a single day closure of ports during Eid will add to existing huge glut and backlog for exporters and cause financial and goodwill loss for not being able to ship the consignments on agreed schedules. He demanded that ports timings should be extended to 05:00 PM with immediate effect.  

    Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo, also expressed his shock over proposed Eid Holidays from 10-15 May, where ports, customs, and banks will remain closed and shipping lines will keep operating.

    This is utterly illogical as without ports, customs, and banks, there will be no use of shipping lines operating.

  • Jazz launches business app for merchants

    Jazz launches business app for merchants

    ISLAMABAD: Jazz, country’s leading phone operator and fintech, has launched a Business App for its rapidly growing merchant base, a statement said on Monday.

    The App has state-of-the-art tools for efficient financial and business management, this app adds to the ease of doing business as small and medium business owners can kick start digital payment acceptance, without the cumbersome bank account registration process.

    This all-new platform has been developed to cater to the SME sector, which is yet to realize the full benefits of a digital payments ecosystem, while some amongst them, are not even part of the formal economy. There are millions of SMEs in Pakistan, and only a few thousand accept digital payments making it a predominately cash-based sector.

    The JazzCash Business app becomes the command center for these merchants, providing visibility on business performance and automating day-to-day activities. Users can receive payments through QR, reconcile transactions, disburse salaries and make payments for stock procurement.

    They can also generate a QR code in real-time and send customizable digital invoices to customers.  Going forward, more features will be added to this app, including the option to request a business loan, playing an essential role in driving economic growth.

    According to Erwan Gelebart, CEO, JazzCash: “JazzCash aims to cultivate a cashless economy and is committed to introducing innovative products and services that offer faster, more transparent, and secure payment solutions.

    “We identified a need for a one-stop digital solution in the SME sector, which still lacks the tools and resources to adopt digital transformation, and created this business app to manage all their financial requirements. By taking advantage of secure, real-time payments, these businesses will witness higher efficiencies and benefit from a thriving digital ecosystem.”

    Business owners can self-onboard from anywhere conveniently by registering themselves on the Business App in a few simple steps by providing basic personal and business information, uploading a copy of their CNIC and photograph.

  • Holiday notice

    Holiday notice

    KARACHI – The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) has officially announced its closure on Friday, May 07, 2021, in observance of Juma-tul-Wida, the Last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

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  • Share market ends down by 186 points

    Share market ends down by 186 points

    KARACHI: The share market ended down by 186 points on Monday owing to roll-over trades from April future contract.

    The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 44,076 points as against last Friday’s closing of 44,262 points, showing a decline of 186 points.

    Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that roll-over trades from April Futures Contract that remained outstanding at the end of Roll-over week on Friday caused mayhem today as well, especially the positions in TRG and NETSOL.

    Resultantly, the Index slashed 632 points during the session. Recovery ensued, considering that the positions have rolled-over however, since the positions were still outstanding, the recovery efforts proved futile, ending the session -186 points.

    NETSOL hit lower circuit since the beginning of the session, whereas TRG traded near lower circuit the entire session. Besides Technology stocks, selling pressure was observed in Cement and Steel sectors which kept the index down. Among scrips, UNITY led the table with 36.2 million shares, followed by TELE (25.2 million) and GGL (23 million).

    Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology (-89 points), Textile (-58 points), Cement (-33 points), Power (-29 points) and Refinery (-12 points).

    Volumes declined from 293.7 million shares to 238 million shares (-19 percent DoD). Average traded value also declined by 18 percent to reach US$ 73.8 million as against US$ 89.7 million.

    Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, TELE, GGL, TRG and WTL, which formed 46 percent of total volumes.

    Stocks that contributed positively to the index include SYS (+41 points), HBL (+17 points), UNITY (+16 points), KTML (+13 points) and FFC (+13 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (-130 points), HUBC (-28 points), NML (-23 points), ANL (-16 points) and LUCK (-15 points).

  • Rupee gains nine paisas against dollar

    Rupee gains nine paisas against dollar

    KARACHI: The Pak Rupee gained nine paisas against the dollar on Monday owing to improved inflows of export receipts.

    The rupee ended Rs153.36 to the dollar from last Friday’s closing of Rs153.45 in the interbank foreign exchange market.

    Currency experts said that the inflows of export receipts helped the rupee to make gain on the first day of the week.

    The exports have maintained over $2 billion in April 2021. Exports for July-April 2021 grew by 13 percent to $20.879 billion as compared to $18.408 billion during the same period last year.

    The experts said that the inflows of exports, remittances and other foreign receipts would help the rupee to maintain levels in coming days.

  • What is last date for redemption of Rs40,000 prize bonds

    What is last date for redemption of Rs40,000 prize bonds

    ISLAMABAD: Regulators are at odds over the last date for conversion/redemption of Rs40,000 denomination national prize bonds, which created distress amongst the prize bondholders.

    A public notice was issued by the Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS) in February 2021, that the government had discontinued the sale of National Prize Bonds (Bearer) of Rs25,000 and Rs40,000. “The deadline for redemption/encashment of these bonds is May 31, 2021.

    On the other hand, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) through its CMD Circular No. 07 dated December 08, 2020, stated: “the finance division, the government of Pakistan has extended the last date for encashment/replacement / conversion of Rs40,000 denomination National Prize Bonds (Bearer) till December 30, 2021, vide their Notification No. F.16(3)GS-1/2014-1603 dated November 26, 2020.”

    The finance division issued notification for withdrawal of Rs25,000 denomination national prize bonds from circulation in December 2020.

    Another SBP CMD Circular No. 08 dated December 10, 2020, stated: “National Prize Bonds of Rs25,000 denomination shall not be sold with immediate effect and will not be encashed/redeemed after May 31, 2021.”

    The public notice issued by the National Savings warned the holders who have not encashed their bonds so far, to redeem/encash Rs25,000 and Rs40,000 prize bonds before the deadline of May 31, 2021, using the following options:

    — Replace with Rs25,000 & Rs40,000 Premium prize bonds (registered)

    — replace with special saving certificates (SSC) / Defence Saving Certificate (DSC)

    — Encashment through Bank Account

    “After the deadline no such bonds will be redeemed/encashed,” it said.

    Sale of Prize Bonds Rs7,500, Rs15,000 stopped forthwith
  • Around 2.9 million returns filed for Tax Year 2020 till May 01

    Around 2.9 million returns filed for Tax Year 2020 till May 01

    ISLAMABAD – The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) announced on Saturday that the number of returns filedfor the tax year 2020 has surged to around 2.9 million as of May 01, 2021, marking a substantial growth of 12 percent compared to the same period last year.

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  • FBR fears coronavirus spread to affect revenue collection in last two months

    FBR fears coronavirus spread to affect revenue collection in last two months

    ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has feared that fast spread of coronavirus in the third wave may affect the efforts of revenue collection during the last two months.

    The FBR in a statement on Saturday said that the revenue collection during the last days of April was slowed down because of measures taken by the government to stop spread of coronavirus.

    The FBR feared that spread of coronavirus may affect the revenue collection efforts in the last two months of the current fiscal year.

    The FBR issued revenue collection figures that showed it achieved a 14 percent growth in net revenue collection for the period July – April 2020/2021.

    However, the revenue body is still facing challenging task to generate over Rs900 billion to achieve revised downward annual target of Rs4,690 billion.

    The FBR has been assigned Rs4.96 trillion revenue collection target for the fiscal year 2020/2021. However, after consultations the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had revised downward the revenue collection target to Rs4.691 trillion for the ongoing fiscal year.

    As per the provisional collection, the FBR collected Rs3,780 billion during July – April 2020/2021 as compared with Rs3,320 billion in the same period of the last fiscal year, showing a increase of 14 percent.

    However, the collection was higher than Rs3,637 billion – the assign collection target for the period under review.

    The FBR said that it had collected record revenue in April 2021. The FBR collected Rs384 billion in April 2021, which was 57 percent higher when compared with Rs240 billion in the same month of the last year.

    The gross revenue collection of the FBR was Rs3,976 billion during first 10 months of the current fiscal year as compared with Rs3,438 billion in the corresponding months of the last fiscal year.

    The issuance of refunds grew by 65 percent during first 10 months of the current fiscal year. The FBR issued refunds worth Rs195 billion during July – April 2020/2021 as compared with Rs118 billion in the same period of the last fiscal year.

  • WTO tariff heading proposed for sales tax on services

    WTO tariff heading proposed for sales tax on services

    KARACHI: Tax practitioners have urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to adopt tariff headings of World Trade Organizations (WTO) for effectively impose sales tax services.

    Tax practitioners under the umbrella of Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) held a pre-budget 2021/2022 conference and discussed issues of sales tax on services.

    It is discussed that all the service sales tax laws contain their own list of taxable services, which are couched in such a way that there are many entries with overlapping scope which lead to interpretational issues.

    Further all the provincial laws envisage origin as well as destination principle for levying tax on service- double taxation Proposal.

    It is recommended that the government should co-ordinate to promulgate negative list approach and specify place of supply rules at earliest.

    It is suggested: “WTO tariff heading for services may also be adopted.”

    It is discussed that despite lapse over ten years, since promulgation of 18th Constitutional Amendment, disputes regarding jurisdiction and basis for levying the sales tax are still unresolved.

    A lot of unnecessary litigation on such issues has piled up.

    National Tax Council has been announced to resolve such issues, however, no tangible results till date.

    It is proposed that the governments should resolve jurisdictional disputes at earliest.