Retailers slam FBR for sealing premises

LAHORE: Retailers on Thursday slammed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) decision allowing field officers powers to seal an integrated retailer’s premises without even a show-cause notice.

The FBR issued a new notification on Wednesday, which allows FBR field officers to seal an integrated retailer’s premises without even a show-cause notice. As per section 150ZEO as per SRO 252/2022, FBR field officers now have the right to seal an integrated retailer’s premises at their discretion.

Chainstore Association of Pakistan (CAP) Chairman Tariq Mehboob on Thursday while talking to The News said that instead of instead of resolving the technical and operational issues faced by the POS integrated retailers, FBR authorised its field officers to seal integrated retailers, “while could not be de-sealed without paying fines”. Large departmental stores issue thousands of invoices while others issue hundreds, but of those, even if three to five invoices do not get verified due to technical issues, the premises could be sealed without the retailer having a chance to explain the anomaly. “Such harsh measures would badly affect the efforts towards creating a conducive business environment and could aggravate the already high level of perceived harassment of existing taxpayers,” he mentioned.

Currently, due to system glitches or other errors, the customers sometimes face issues in getting their invoice verified from the FBR system when they submit in the Tax Assan App.

If the invoice was unverified, the customers have an option to report it. Once the customer reports it or during shop visit of FBR official, the invoice falls in the category of unverified, the FBR officers have the power to seal the business premises immediately.