ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has launched monitoring of sales tax and federal excise duty following huge gap detected in indirect revenue collection.
“There appear to be a big gap between actual collection of sales tax / federal excise and its true potential,” the FBR said in a communication sent to all Chief Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
The FBR said that in order to bridge the gap numerous amendments were made in Sales Tax Act, 1990 and Federal Excise Act, 2005 through Finance Act, 2019.
Now administrative measures are required to be strengthened / implement the policy corrections/
The FBR directed the field formations to adopt the following steps in addition to their regular actions:
01. Immediate action on non-files of July and August 2019, especially where the registered persons have filed their sales tax returns for the tax periods of May and June 2019. In addition, desk audit of the registered persons who filed returns for the month of July and August 2019 to be conducted especially those who were previously included in five reduced / zero rated sectors.
02. Monitoring of registered persons paying sales tax under Eighth Schedule of the Sales Tax Act, 1990 especially in those cases where registered persons are supplying at reduced rate.
03. Sectoral analysis/reports must be made by the field formations having jurisdiction over a specific sector, and these reports should be shared with the FBR as well as other field formations having jurisdiction over same sectors. Any success stories be identified.
04. The registered persons dealing in third schedule items should be specifically monitored to ensure the sales tax is being paid on the retail price.
05. Printing of retail price has to be ensured and price lists of all such products have to be obtained from the manufactured/importers filing in Third Schedule to compared with the printed prices of products supplied in market.
06. Monitoring of stock position as on June 30, 2019 filed by the manufacturers/importers of goods which have been included in Third Schedule to ensure that supply is made and tax is charged on retail price.
07. Timely filing of sales tax/federal excise returns along with all the annexure should be ensured. It has been observed that the registered persons do intentionally skip some annexures while filing the returns.
08. Analysis of Annexure J showing the sale, production and stock must be at regular basis.
09. Special focus should be made on those cases which have piled up massive carry forward and are only paying sales tax under Section 8B of the Sales Tax Act, 1990.
10. FBR instructions / SOP for revision of the Sales Tax Returns should be followed in letter and spirit.
