PHMA demands faster refunds

LAHORE: Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PHMA) asked the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to speed up releasing the knitwear industry’s sales tax refunds, so the industry pays its workers before Eid.

PHMA North Zone chairman Naseer Butt said the value-added export-oriented industry has been facing a financial crunch and losses of billions of rupees as its liquidity remains stuck with the FBR. “The industry continued to suffer due to shortage of gas and constant power breakdowns, shortage of industrial raw materials caused by restrictions on opening of letters of credit (LC), discontinuation of DLTL and Regionally Competitive Energy Tariffs,” he added.

The knitwear industry had earlier expressed satisfaction over the functioning of the FBR’s FASTER system, which was processing claims electronically as per law and rules without any delay. The FASTER system was introduced to end human intervention and process the sales tax claims electronically, while the new parameters introduced in the STGO involving FBR officials would defer the sales tax claims and again open the floodgates to corruption, he pointed out.