FAISALABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) regional tax office arrested a trader for making fake invoices worth millions of rupees to evade tax.

The FBR officials registered a case against the suspect, Shabbir Shah, the owner of Amin Traders, after collecting evidence.

An FBR officer said an inquiry had established that Shah was a part of fraudsters’ gang involved in issuance of fake invoices. He said Shah along with other persons/abettors was habitual tax fraudster and was found involved in issuance of flying invoices by getting units registered under different CNIC numbers with different regional tax offices (RTOs) across the country to trick the FBR.He said itwas observed that Shah had declared taxable purchases/import of Rs217m and claimed input tax credit amounting Rs43m. He had declared local supplies valuing Rs249m involving output tax of Rs42m reportedly charged to its buyers.

During the scrutiny of sales tax returns data, it was observed that M/s Amin Traders, Faisalabad had declared local supplies of ‘computer & office equipment, brushes, buttons, pencils, ribbons, paints, varnishes, lacquers, enamels, bedding cushions, waxes, articles of iron or steel and woven fabrics’ whereas, as per his sales profile, imports declared by him were completely different from the goods sold.

Shah was the primary beneficiary and beneficial owner of M/s Amin Traders as most of the amount in the bank accounts of the firm had been deposited by him and he had admitted the same.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2021