ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Thursday released cash amount of Rs30 billion
refunds to total 554
exporters after cancellation of issued bonds. The government had issued bonds of worth Rs30 billion to
exporters a few months back but the
exporters were facing difficulties because these bonds were not tradable so causing problems for exporters. The
exporters had demanded of the government to cancel the bonds and provide them cash amount of Rs30 billion. The FBR high-ups confirmed that the cash amount was released on Thursday to hundreds of
exporters that will help them overcome their liquidity crunch. “Yes, we have made cash payment of total refund amount of Rs30 billion to 554 persons,” the FBR’s Member Inland Revenue Policy Dr Hamid Ateeq Sarwar confirmed to The News when asked him in this regard on Thursday night. The FBR also announced that it has disbursed payment to exporters/bond holders by redeeming bonds issued to the refund claimants.The government took this step in order to resolve liquidity crunch being faced by the exporters. The exports have just started picking up momentum as export earning fetched close to 10 percent increase in recent months after witnessing flat growth in last so many years.Meanwhile, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance & Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on Wednesday met a group of leading businessmen representing various export sectors contributing nearly $2 billion exports, to discuss and review progress on the issues pertaining to payment of Sales Tax
refunds to exporters.Adviser to Adviser Commerce Ali Habib, FBR Chairman Syed Shabbar Zaidi and Secretary Finance Naveed Kamran Baloch were also present in the meeting, which was attended by leading
exporters from Lahore and Karachi, including Shahid Soorty, Musaadiq Zulqarnain, Fawad Anwer, Shahid Abdullah, Bashir Ali Mohammad, Rizwan Dewan, Asif Tata, Ahmed Ibrahim, Sameer Chinoy and Khurram Mukhtar.During the meeting, various proposals were put forward by the businessmen and
exporters and FBR was advised to work more aggressively on reforming and simplifying the processes through automation for early and prompt payment of sales tax refunds.Abdul Hafeez Shaikh told the businessmen that he had already constituted a committee comprising officials from FBR and members of APTMA to simplify the Form-H within the next few days to make it simple and easy for the
exporters claiming sales tax refunds. The businessmen were asked to nominate anyone they liked to become part of the committee as he wanted to ensure a hassle-free submission of tax refund claims and their subsequent payment without any delay.The businessmen thanked the adviser and his team in FBR for ensuring payment of Rs30 billion sales tax
refunds to the
exporters in the last couple of days. The adviser told the businessmen that FBR was working very hard to facilitate the
exporters and another Rs2 to Rs3 billion tax
refunds would also be issued within the next couple of days.
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