KARACHI: Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) on Monday urged Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to issue necessary clarification related to issues in recently promulgated tax ordinance.
The KTBA sent a letter to Syed Shabbar Zaidi, Chairman, FBR and pointed out anomalies in the Tax Laws (Second Amendment) Ordinance, 2019 for clarification.
The KTBA highlighted that Sub-section 4 has been added to section 73 of Sales Tax Act, 1990, under which sales to an unregistered person by a registered manufacture cannot be made for more than Rs10 million in a month and Rs100 million in a year, failing which input tax will be disallowed proportionately.
Considering the implication of the phrase of unregistered person [i.e. singular term] used in drafting of the law, instead of the phrase unregistered persons [plural term], it implies that the restriction is applicable on sales to a single unregistered person instead of cumulative sales to all unregistered person(s).
In order to ensure that intent of law is not suffered by any legal infirmity due to any unintended or inadvertent drafting, the clarification must be issued in this respect on urgent note, it added.
It further pointed out that in addition to the above, it should also be clarified as to whether the all unregistered person will be effected or only those unregistered person who actually were required to be registered in Sale Tax but didn’t ?
In the event, the law is intended to cover all unregistered persons, without any discrimination, certain serious ramification would follow because of the fact that Manufacturers won’t be able to make sale to various Government/other authorities, armed forces hospitals, Universities, Charities & EPZ entities, which by law, are not required to be registered at all, in the first place.
The KTBA said that it is important to define the category of unregistered person who should not suffer due to any adverse implication of the law. Hence, a clarification is necessitated in this context.
The tax bar further highlighted the amendments introduced related to business license.
Through the Tax Laws (Second Amendment) Ordinance, 2019, various penalties have been prescribed for person who has not obtained business license, while the procedure to obtain business license has not been prescribed as yet.
It is not possible to get a Business License either for any person or for any tax commissioner to issue one.
An unnumbered and undated draft SRO was issued by the FBR in July 2019, whereby Draft rules 83A to 83E were proposed in the Income Tax Rules, 2002 for the purpose, which were not finalized yet.
