ISLAMABAD, Sept 27: The Pakistan Vanaspati Manufacturer's Association (PVMA) threatened on Monday not to pay duty and taxes at import stage edible oils as well as excise duty on supply of vegetable ghee/ cooking oil from October 1, 2004.

The PVMA chairman Sh. Muhammad Ikram in a statement released to media asked the government to meet their demands in the next three days otherwise the PVMA secretariat would stop verifying indents/ commercial invoices for import of edible oil from September 30, 2004.

All the member units of PVMA would close down all operational activities of their units including stoppage of boilers, production, sales and shut their gates from October 4, 2004, positively.

The chairman said that the vegetable ghee/cooking oil units in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Provincially Administered Tribal Area (PATA) at present were exempt of excise duty on imported edible oils. Furthermore, customs duty on edible oils imported by them was Rs4,800 per ton only.

The government in the budget 2004-05 have abolished further tax (3 per cent) on supply of edible oils for commercial importers and levied sales tax/central excise duty only with a value addition of 10 per cent.

On the other hand, the PVMA members units are being pressed by the government to pay excise duty on supply of vegetable ghee/cooking oil with a value addition of 15 per cent on all taxable purchases.

As a result the commercial importers are required to pay excise duty of Rs540 per ton with 10 per cent value addition whereas PVMA member units are required to pay excise duty of Rs1,200 per ton with 15 per cent value addition or say an excess of Rs660 per ton over the commercial importers.

This situation has encouraged the import of edible oils by the commercial importers as the buyer of this edible oil neither pay income tax nor excise duty on supply of vegetable ghee/ cooking oil because these are cottage type units not registered with the government, the chairman said.