KARACHI: In a letter to Finance Minister Asad Umar dated Oct 1, the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) claims the government will suffer Rs50 billion in revenue loss in case of sales drop due to ban on purchase of vehicles by non-filers of tax returns.

While urging the government not to place any restriction on non-filers for purchase of cars, PAMA offered its cooperation for documentation purposes, saying “it will continue to share the data on non-filers with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on a regular basis.”

The PML-N government had imposed a restriction on non-filers of tax returns from purchasing new cars in the Finance Act 2018-19, but the amendments to that act introduced by the PTI’s finance minister will reverse the decision, if passed.

In 2014, categories were introduced for purchase of locally produced cars by filers and non-filers with lower and higher rates of income tax which has helped the government by creating separate class of non filers which the government could pursue about which the local assemblers have also been providing data to the government, PAMA said.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd , 2018