PHC moved against tax imposition on PVC material 

PESHAWAR: The imposition of 37.43 percent anti-dumping duty on the import of a material called Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) resin by the National Tariff Commission was challenged in the Peshawar High Court (PHC).

The Union Board Mills (Pvt) Limited, through its lawyer Shumail Ahmad Butt, challenged the imposition of the tax on the import of the material from China.

The federal government through Ministry of Commerce, National Tariff Commission (NTC) through its chairman, Federal Board of Revenue and collector customs have been made parties in the petition.

The petition stated that the company was engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling paper board and allied products, has its manufacturing concerns located within Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and is contributing to an otherwise-feeble industrial base of the province.

It said the petitioner’s company came to the province when industries are either being shut or shifted outside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when nobody is ready to invest in the province due to militancy and insecurity.

The company said that the recent imposition of so-called “Super Tax” has already squeezed the margin of profit and has prodded the petitioner company towards unsustainability.

It was submitted that in course of manufacturing its products, the petitioner, besides other raw materials, also imports in sizable quantities PVC resin primarily from China, Indonesia and Chinese Taipei.

The company said that the present National Tariff Commission had been formed in violation of the Supreme Court’s decision as the federal government formed it on September 5, 2016 without approval from the federal cabinet.

It requested the high court to declare the anti-dumping duty illegal and against the law and suspend the recovery of the duty till final decision of the case.