ISLAMABAD, April 22 : The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has decided to carry out audit of registered jewellers across the country aiming to raise the revenue from this sector.
Informed sources told Dawn on Monday that the decision was taken due to the fact that the tax authorities had, so far, collected very meagre amount from the registered jewellers.
Official figures available with Dawn showed that only Rs1 million were collected from the registered jewellers under the head of sales tax in the July-March period of the current financial year.
The sources said to tape this sector the tax authorities had already started serving notices on the registered jewellers to inquire about their exact businesses.
The government had levied 15 per cent general sales tax (GST) on the supply, manufacturing, wholesale and retail stages of jewellry in the last year’s budget.
For the implementation of the GST, the government had notified rules for jewellers through a notification, which was called the Special Procedure for Jewellers Rules, 2001.
Under these rules, the tax authorities were empowered to register every jeweller engaged in the business of manufacturing, supplying, retailing and wholesaling of jewellry.
According to the sources, the low collection of revenue was also due to the reason that the tax officials had failed to register maximum jewellers across the country with the sales tax department as regular taxpayers.
They said it was unfair that the CBR had launched audit of those registered jewellers who were already paying taxes on their products.
They further said due to such kind of actions the people were resisting to come under the tax net.
The jewellry which was liable to sales tax included ornaments and articles of adornment made of gold or silver, precious and semi-precious metals, precious or semi-precious stones, gems or any other such materials.
