ISLAMABAD: In line with the directives of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO), Post-Clearance Audit (PCA) of the Customs Department has recovered Rs11.85 million less paid sales tax during the month of June 2022.
Precisely, it was brought to the notice of the FTO that certain goods were made chargeable to sales tax on the basis of retail price at the time of import by virtue of amendments made in Section 3(2) of the Sales Tax Act, 1990 vide Finance Act, 2019-20. The FBR in order to give effect to the budgetary changes issued the Customs General Order, whereby, the Directorate General of Reforms; Automation (Customs) was required to make necessary changes in the WeBOC clearance system of Customs for charging sales tax on retail price.
The FTO observed that the department had not only failed to develop a functional and practicable solution to the problem at hand i.e. development of an IT-based module to cater for the budgetary changes with a view to capture and realise the exact amount of due taxes at the import stage on items subjected to tax on retail price vide Finance Act, 2019 but it was also a massive revenue loss.
A report was called by the FTO from the PCA Directorate General regarding detections made by them in this regard. Data revealed that the three committees constituted by the FBR failed to perform and complete the assigned task with sincerity of purpose despite the lapse of about three years.
In view of the above, Tax Ombudsman directed the FBR to ensure that the DG, PCA, should constitute a dedicated team under the supervision of the additional director at each regional Directorate for an in-depth audit of this sector and submit a monthly progress report of detections made and tax collected till the final deployment of the WeBOC module.
As a result, the said teams had been constituted in all the three Regional Directorates of the PCA, the audit was being successfully conducted by all the directorates and Rs11.854 million recovered during the month of June 2022. This amount is an addition to the already recovered amount of 286.6 million by the PCA.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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