Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Shabbar Zaidi on Wednesday told a legislative body of the Upper House of parliament that the FBR had clarified on a number of occasions and “clarifies again through this forum” that no consumer item had been additionally taxed, except sugar, which had gone from 11% to 17%.
Members of the Senate Committee on Delegated Legislation also observed that many stores had been charging sales tax other than the tagged prices on products. The officials told the meeting that an SRO is being drafted and will be issued to all the clothing markets to include the tax in the tagged price and no money can be overcharged after going to counters. The Committee also discussed the issues faced by public in tax returns filing, mobile phone registration, and taxation in ex-FATA among other issues. Senate Committee held a briefing by FBR regarding the subordinate legislation; rules, regulations, orders, SROs, bylaws schemes which FBR carries out the purposes of parent legislation. The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Kauda Babar here at the Parliament House and was attended among others by Senators Dr. Asad Ashraf, Saleem Zia, Rubina Khalid, Kalsoom Parveen, Mir Hasil Bizenjo, Min Raza Rabbani, Mirza Muhammad Afridi, Chairman FBR Shabbar Zaidi and senior officials from FBR. The meeting was told that all the acts of parliament and rules and regulations relating to FBR are available on FBR’s website and are public. The committee decided to go through all the pieces of parent and subordinate legislation and discuss subsequently.
