The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to outline guide techniques for Inland Revenue Officers for effective monitoring of sales and clearances of goods at the big retail outlets and manufacturing places of different sectors to minimize and control sales tax evasion.

Under the section 40B of the Sales Tax Act 1990, the Inland Revenue (IR) Officers can perform supervisory clearances of the finished products or manufactured goods at the factory or retail outlets.

For this purpose, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will engage Inland Revenue Officers at retail outlets, who have not been still integrated with the Point of Sale (POS) system of FBR, for monitoring of their sales for payment of sales tax.

FBR can also depute IR Officers on sugar mills to check whether the relevant sector is clearing all sugar bags with tax stamps under the track and trace system.

According to the FBR’s instructions to the field formations here on Tuesday, as per direction of the FBR chairman, mandatory awareness workshops would be held for inspectors of Inland Revenue. The subject matter of the training is “How to impose effective section 40-B of the Sales Tax Act 1990”.

In consequences to this, the FBR has deputed sales tax officers on such big retail outlets and manufacturing premises under section 40B of the Sales Tax Act 1990. The FBR has also prepared operational Terms of Reference (TORs) for integration of retailers into the POS system.

Some Tier-I retailers were reluctant to be integrated with POS system despite, repeated reminders of the FBR. To deal with such retailers, the FBR has started deputing IR officers at their sales premises to check sales. The presence of the Inland Revenue (IR) officers at these places will force the retailers to get themselves registered with the Point of Sales system (POS) system of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

Source: Business Recorder