ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to make payment of all income tax refunds of up to Rs50 million in the next couple of weeks, and a clear roadmap and strategy may be adopted for the payment of the remaining refunds.
"The government has a clear policy that all tax refunds, whether fresh or old, should be paid back without any excuse," he said, while chairing a meeting at the Finance Division.
Minister for Industries and Production Muhammad Hammad Azhar, Minister for Power Omar Ayub Khan, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood, Special Assistant to the PM on Petroleum Nadeem Babar, Chairman NA Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue Faizullah Kamoka, and Chairman FBR Javed Ghani were also present, while a number of businessmen from different parts of the country attended the meeting on Zoom.
Shaikh told the meeting that the government, last year, paid tax refunds to the tune of Rs140 billion, nearly double the amount of refunds paid in final year 2018-2019.
Similarly, the government had also started payment of income tax refunds, starting with payment of income tax refunds of up to Rs18 million in the first phase. The income tax refunds of Rs50 million will be cleared in the next phase, which would be completed within the next two weeks and a total of Rs40 billion would be spent to pay off all income tax refunds of Rs50 million, said a statement issued by the Finance Ministry.
The meeting also discussed issues pertaining to the allocation of power and gas subsidy to the zero-rated and export sector, and decided to convene another meeting to build consensus on using the Rs20 billion kept for the current year for the gas and power subsidy.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.