Imprisonment for retailers on tax integration failure

Imprisonment for retailers on tax integration failure

The Sales Tax Act, 1990 has prescribed penalty and imprisonment for retailers and manufacturers on failure to comply with the mandatory requirement of integration with the online system of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) issued the Sales Tax Act, 1990 updated up to June 30, 2021. The Act incorporated amendments brought through Finance Act, 2021.

Following is the text of section 33(24 and 25) of the Sales Tax Act, 1990:

33. Offences and penalties.– Whoever commits any offence shall, in addition to and not in derogation of any punishment to which he may be liable under any other law, be liable to the penalty mentioned against that offence: –

24. Any person, who is integrated for monitoring, tracking, reporting or recording of sales, production and similar business transactions with the Board or its computerized system, conducts such transactions in a manner so as to avoid monitoring, tracking, reporting or recording of such transactions, or issues an invoice which does not carry the prescribed invoice number or barcode or bears duplicate invoice number or counterfeit barcode, or any person who abets commissioning of such offence.

Such person shall pay a penalty of five hundred thousand rupees or two hundred per cent of the amount of tax involved, whichever is higher. He shall, further be liable, upon conviction by a Special Judge, to simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with additional fine which may extend to two million rupees, or with both.

Any person who abets commissioning of such offence, shall be liable, upon conviction by a Special Judge, to simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with additional fine which may extend to two hundred thousand rupees, or with both.

25. Any person, who is required to integrate his business for monitoring, tracking, reporting or recording of sales, production and similar business transactions with the Board or its computerized system, fails to get himself registered under the Act, and if registered, fails to integrate in the manner as required under the law.

Such person shall be liable to pay a penalty up to one million rupees, and if continues to commit the same offence after a period of two months after the imposition of penalty as aforesaid, his business premises shall be sealed till such time he integrates his business in the manner as stipulated under sub-section (9A) of section 3 or section 40C, as the case may be.

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(Disclaimer: The text of the above section is only for information. Team PkRevenue.com makes all efforts to provide the correct version of the text. However, the team PkRevenue.com is not responsible for any error or omission.)