FBR to clear Rs8.741 bn claims from stuck up sales tax refunds

ISLAMABAD: Out of total outstanding claims of Rs147 billion in shape of stuck up sales tax refunds, the FBR on Saturday announced to clear backlog amount of Rs8.741 billion in a bid to facilitate exporters.

The exporters are facing liquidity crunch and demanding of the government to clear the outstanding backlog. The refund payment orders (RPOs) took long and cumbersome process for which the exporters alleged that they had to pay bribe to get their genuine money in shape of refunds. On other side, the FBR officials said that there was mafia involved in alleged flying invoices who always vying for getting fake refunds at the cost of national exchequer.

“Now the government is considering different options to pay all outstanding genuine refunds against total claims of Rs147 billion as one option is issuance of tradable securities,” official sources confirmed to The News here on Saturday.

The exporters claimed that the total stuck up refunds stood up to Rs200 billion however, the FBR did not accept this claim saying that the claims of refunds shown on tax returns stood at Rs147 billion. It’s just a claim of exporters and it requires through verification through placed system of the FBR, said the official.

When contacted to FBR’s spokesman Dr Iqbal said that the government intended to clear reconciled claims of exporting sector and different options were under consideration but nothing was so far finalised on this subject. “The government is seriously considering different options to clear the backlog on sales tax refunds,” Dr Iqbal added.

According to official announcement made by the FBR stating that Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has issued an advice to the State Bank of Pakistan for making payment of sales tax refunds amounting to Rs8741 million to facilitate the exports. The payment will benefit 739 claimants from five export-oriented zero-rated sectors i.e. textiles, carpets, leather, sports goods and surgical instruments. The refund has been paid against 4117 refund payment orders issued up to 8th November, 2018.

The refund payments shall be transmitted electronically to the respective bank accounts of claimants by the State Bank of Pakistan by the close of banking hours on Monday, 12th November, 2018.

The payments have been made to all those claimants of the aforesaid categories who had provided their bank account details in IBAN format. Those refund claimants who have not provided account number in IBAN format are requested to provide the same through their user ID on FBR’s web portal. Further, Federal Board of Revenue is conscious of the problems being faced by the businesses on account of outstanding refunds and is working on plan to pay remaining outstanding refund claims at the earliest, the statement concluded.