FBR Claims Sugar Mills Pay 80% More Taxes

Earlier in 2020, a sugar crisis occurred in the country, which was then reported by an inquiry commission. Following the published report, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) decided to take appropriate action and recover the taxes that the sugar mills in the country had previously evaded. The board reported to the Prime Minister just recently that it was able to recover a sizable portion of the evaded taxes. 

When this was revealed to the Prime Minister, he was chairing a meeting. The point of the gathering was to review the implementation of the recommendations that were made by the sugar inquiry commission. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had been made responsible for heading the commission.  

During the meeting, the premier took to urge the relevant authorities to ensure the complete and rigorous implementations of the recommendations made by the commission. He warned that if actions were not taken to do so, he will take strict actions against all those responsible for causing the delay. 

Sources have revealed that FBR officials informed the attendees at the meeting about taking appropriate actions against the irregularities, which were highlighted back when the sugar mills were forensically audited. 

The FBR had issued demand notices to sugar mills for Rs345 billion, which had tempered their existing tax records. 

Ever since the sugar commission report was brought to light, the FBR has successfully recovered around 80% of the tax that was owed to it by the sugar mills. Earlier on, the sugar mills had made payments of Rs. 16billion in taxes. However, now they have made a total payment of Rs. 29 billion for the purpose of taxes. 

According to sources, the rules of the FBR were amended back when the last PML-N government was in power. It is due to those amendments that tax authorities were unable to share records of sales tax with anyone. The FBR was also instructed to not share information with any governments that may follow. 

When the current Prime Minister, Imran Khan was made aware of these amendments, he quickly informed the authorities to ensure that these were rolled back. However, even after the passing of 15 days, the chairman of the FBR was unable to complete this task. As a result, the amendments are still in place.

The premier did not hold back on expressing his displeasure at this delay. He declared that gone are the days when the government hid information related to the ruling class from the common people. He encouraged transparency where important information was concerned. 

Khan went on to add that he will not allow the existence of such dual standards during his term. He stated that he is well aware of the people who are using different tactics to cause delays. The premier promised that he will take action against anyone who was unable to complete the assigned work on time. 

The owners of sugar mills, as per the Prime Minister, will be treated just like any shopkeeper.