FBR Scheme, Registration of less than 50 retailers in 15 days

Islamabad: With only 2 weeks left for the FBR deadline for retailers to register, less than 50 retailers have so far registered themselves voluntarily, leaving the government to The challenges for registration can be assessed.

FBR sources said that less than 50 traders have registered themselves during the 2 weeks of the campaign.

It should be noted that the registration scheme for traders is also being seen as a political commitment of the Shahbaz Sharif government, which includes bringing real estate, wholesalers and retailers into the tax net. However, the brunt of failure will fall on the salaried class, which is already burdened by taxes.

Apart from this, there is a need to bring exporters at par with other economic classes by abolishing the one percent income tax imposed on exporters.

It may be noted that FBR has started the registration scheme from April 1 in which dealers, retailers, manufacturers-cum-retailers, importers-cum-retailers and everyone involved in the supply chain will be registered. Implementation of the scheme Initially, it is being done in the economic hubs of the country, Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Quetta and Peshawar, however, the lack of interest of the traders in the registration scheme is increasing the chances of failure of the scheme, if the scheme fails for any reason. If it fails, it will also question the viability of the Special Investment Facilitation Council, which approved the scheme.

There are an estimated 3.7 million retailers in Pakistan, of which less than 300,000 are registered.

An FBR officer said in this regard that attention is being paid to increase the tax net, but despite this, the FBR does not have enough staff to track tax evaders and collect taxes from them. Coin, 2.4 million non-filers have been identified by FBR while commitment was expressed to close at least 5 lakh non-filers since January this year.