President Alvi directs FBR to bring unregistered sugar dealers into the tax net.

ISLAMABAD -- President Dr. Arif Alvi has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to bring into the tax net the unregistered wholesalers, dealers or distributors of sugar buying huge quantities from sugar mills to broaden the tax base. He observed that despite making huge monetary transactions and the availability of their data with FBR, these unregistered buyers of sugar largely remained outside the tax net and were evading the prime national responsibility of paying taxes.

President Dr. Arif Alvi passed these directions while upholding a decision of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) directing FBR to bring unregistered buyers of sugar in bulk into the tax net to improve the collection of sales tax and reporting compliance within 90 days.

As per details, FTO had initiated an Own Motion investigation against the failure of FBR to bring into the tax net the unregistered buyers of sugar from M/s Naudero Sugar Mills (Pvt) Ltd. FTO observed that non-NTN holders had been buying huge quantities of sugar from sugar mills and their data was fully accessible by the FBR but this huge potential for tax collection remained unutilized. In its report, the FTO highlighted that during the last four years sugar worth Rs 2.7 billion was supplied by the said mills to various unregistered buyers, only three buyers held NTN, and FBR had not paid due attention to broadening the tax base. It further observed that this low hanging fruit had not yet been harvested and despite making huge monetary transactions, unregistered buyers of sugar remained outside the tax net. FTO underscored that unregistered persons were easily identifiable because sugar mills were required to maintain records of supplies made during the Tax period and issue tax invoices indicating names, addresses, description, quantity, values of goods, CNIC or NTN of...