ISLAMABAD-The exporters Sunday demanded immediate refunds of Rs200 billion from Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to avoid units closure amid liquidity crunch.
Talking to a delegation of exporters led by Kaleem Ullah Anjum, Coordinator to Federal Tax Ombudsman Meher Kashif Younis said Pakistan textile industry is likely to lose global markets because of various taxes, levies, presumptive taxes and surcharges, making the exports 10 percent costlier against the regional competitors hence, it’s the dire need of the hour that government must adopt pro-exports policy to boost the exports manifolds.
Meher Kashif Younis said with the withdrawal of zero rated regime and the implementation of a 17 percent GST on export oriented sector, the cost of doing business has increased to unsustainable levels. Expressing concern over unnecessary delay in payment of exporters’ sales tax refunds, after witnessing a historic hike, the textile exports fell by 15.23 percent in October mainly because of the exporters were experiencing an extreme liquidity crunch.
He said textile exports are expected to increase from $19.35 billion to $25 billion this year and $50 billion over the next half decade. He said as the stuck up refunds and tax credit of export oriented industries swelled to over Rs200 billion in the current fiscal year, if not cleared timely, will cause closing down textile units as severe liquidity crunch made it impossible to continue their operations in these odd circumstances. He said data showed the refund payment order worth Rs45 billion is pending since Oct 16 with FBR while deferred sales tax refund edged upto Rs55 billion in the last half year.