Tax reference filed by Tareen's mills against FBR order allowed.

LAHORE -- The Lahore High Court has allowed a sales tax reference of JDW Sugar Mills, owned by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's estranged leader Jahangir Khan Tareen, against the Inland Revenue department of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

The mills filed the reference against an order passed by an appellate tribunal of the Inland Revenue on June 29, 2015.

Advocate Sultan Ali Awan, the mills' counsel, submitted before the court that his client was issued a show-cause notice on April 16, 2005 for the tax period of 2000-02 on the basis of an audit report containing certain allegations. He said the department passed an order against the mills in 2006, which was challenged before the collector (appeals).

The appeal was also dismissed and the taxpayer/applicant moved another appeal before the appellate tribunal, which was also rejected through the impugned order.

The counsel argued that the original order passed by the department in 2006 was beyond the prescribed period of limitation specified under the Sales Tax Act 1990. A legal adviser of the department failed to rebut the fact about the limitation.

In its decision, a two-judge bench of the LHC headed by Justice Sajid Mahmood Sethi observes that the record shows the original order was...