Daily Tax News

The last Collectors of Customs conference held at the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has not discussed the major facilitation measure of payment of rebates/duty drawback to the exporters during 2016-17, reflecting focus on maximum revenue generation. Sources told here that the last Collectors of Customs conference discussed many issues including recovery of arrears, sales tax and withholding tax collection at import stage and measures to increase revenue collection in the remaining period of 2016-17. However, the authorities have not asked Collectors of Customs to share details of the amount of rebate/duty drawback paid to the exporters by each Model Customs Collectorate. The rebate and drawback are the basic right of different categories of claimants including importers and manufacturers-cum-exporters, but the Collectors of Customs conference remained silent on the issue relating to the business community. This means that the whole conference only focused on the administrat...

GCC all set for VAT implementation from January 01, 2018 The UAE press has reported that during an interview with Thomson Reuters, Zawya, Younis al-Khouri, the under-secretary at the UAE Ministry of Finance , confirmed the following in relation to the introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT): • The UAE intends to introduce VAT from 1 January 2018, despite administrative and technical obstacles. • The VAT registration threshold will be US$100,000 of annual revenue • The standard rate of VAT will be 5%, with limited exemptions over seven sectors, including:     −  Education     −  Healthcare     −  Renewable energy     −  Water     −  Space     −  Transport     −  Technology • The Government expects to collect around US$3.3b (about 0.9% of GDP) revenue from the introduction of VAT in its first year. • The Government is not considering a VAT rate above 5%, an...

Hascol Petroleum Limited, one of the growing companies in Pakistan in terms of operations and profit, has announced setting of a wholly-owned subsidiary Hascol Lubricants (Private) Limited at the cost of $ US 20 million. The subsidiary will operate the plant that produces various brands of lubricants. The decision was communicated by the Company to Pakistan Stock Exchange on 17-02-2017 According to the notification from Company, the subsidiary will operate a Hascol’s Lube Oil Blending and Grease Plant, which is expected to be completed within next two years. The company already acquired land measuring approximately six acres at Port Qasim for the blending plant, in collaboration with FUCHS-Germany. The production of lubricants and different petroleum products is expected to boost the business of Hascol Petroleum. Forming a separate subsidiary was a strategic decision of the company that was undertaken in order to avail tax exemptions available under the Income Tax Ordinance...

Punjab continues to collect land-based agriculture income tax; but due to lack of appropriate systems, however, it was never able to comply with the 2001 amendment that stipulated that tax would be land or income-based depending on whichever is higher. This was stated by Punjab Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha . Dr Pasha said that "we tried to persuade holders of 50 acres or more to file income tax returns. However, this could not be implemented due to procedural bottlenecks and now the provincial government is trying to put in place a computerised system backed by collection of accurate information of income (inclusive of regional variations) and expenditure (including input costs) by the end of this calendar year." Dr Pasha re-emphasised that "the land-based tax is agriculture income tax which has not been withdrawn by the provincial government and a mechanism is being developed to improve its collection". Member Tax Policy Board of Revenue Punjab...

Tehsil Council Karak has decided to introduce a new tax in the name of production tax on the natural resources explored in the vicinity of Karak Tehsil. This was decided in a meeting of Tehsil Council Karak held with its convener Haji Jehanzeb Khattak in the chair and all Tehsil council members attended the meeting. The meeting discussed the ongoing financial crises of the Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) Karak and stressed that the liabilities against the contractors should be deposited in the TMA account immediately so that TMA could pay the salaries of its employees. The meeting of the council regretted that the TMA was so weak financially that it could not pay monthly salaries to its employees and emphasized to ponder new sources of income for the administration. Tehsil Nazim Haji Abdul Wahab Khattak also stressed in his address to the meeting on strict financial management and claimed that austerity measures would be adopted by curtailing all other extra expendit...