ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Member Customs Policy, Syed Hamid Ali Thursday categorically refused to share a list of items with the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance, on which regulatory duty (RD) has been imposed in the budget (2021-22).
During the committee meeting, MNA Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh pointed out that the FBR has imposed RD on over 80 items. Business community including importers wants to know the names of the items on which RD has been imposed during budget (2021-22).
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had increased the regulatory duties on the import of 80 non-essential/luxury items and reduced additional customs duty (ACD) from seven to six percent on goods falling under 2,436 tariff lines in budget 2021-22.
The FBR Member Customs Policy, Syed Hamid Ali, responded that the imposition of the RD on different items is not part of the Finance Bill 2021-22.
The RDs would be imposed through an SRO from July 1, 2021.
The items are mostly luxury and non-essential items including imported chocolates, drinks, and coffee of foreign brands.
When Qaiser Sheikh insisted to share the list of items, Chairman of the committee Faiz Ullah stated that he would provide the list to Sheikh after obtaining it from the FBR.
Hamid Ali informed the committee that the FBR cannot share the list of items before issuance of the notification.
We cannot officially share the list with the committee, he added.
The Committee directed the FBR to remove the definition of online market place Section 2 (18-A), the deemed retailer clause within the tier -1 retailer condition section (43-AF) and the chargeability of sales tax proposal on online market places under Section (3-3C) considered.
The Committee directed the FBR to remove the proposed withholding tax on un-registered sellers selling on online market places.
The Committee observed that the FBR work with online market places to increase the documentation of un-registered market place sellers. The Committee further recommended that this may be reconsidered in future.
The Committee directed the Ministry of Commerce and National Tariff Commission (NTC) to discuss and take all possible measures to remove anomalies in duty structure of tariff concerning Pakistan Custom Tariff (PCT) Codes 4411.9200, 4411.9310, 4411.9390 and 4411.9400) being intermediary in nature as presented by the stakeholders and recommend that same may be substituted to 11 percent, so that a level-playing field in the business is provided to all the stakeholders.
The Committee directed the Chairman and Member (IR-Policy), FBR, to have a meeting Thursday, ie, 24th June, 2021, with the stakeholders from ginning sector and agriculture sector regarding tax imposition on agriculture implements and the representatives of online market place.
The meeting was attended by Dr Aisha Ghous Pasha, Faheem Khan, Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh, Ali Pervaiz, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, Ahsan Iqbal, Sadaqat Ali Khan Abbasi, Jamil Ahmed Khan, MNAs, and Minister for Finance and Revenue besides the senior officers from the Ministry of Finance and Revenue, and the Federal Board of Revenue.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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