FAISALABAD, Dec 18: The Central Board of Revenue has doubled the ceiling of amount for refund of sales tax to expedite the settlement of sales tax refund claims of Faisalabad exporters, stated Mohammad Ramzan Bhatti, member sales tax, CBR, while talking to the members of All Pakistan Cloth Exporters Association (APCEA).

He said in this connection hurdles and procedural bottlenecks pointed out by the exporters would be removed. He asked the exporters to feel free to approach the authorities concerned for resolving their problems.

A delegation of APCEA led by its chairman Khurram Iftikhar, held a meeting with the member sales tax at local collectorate and informed him about the sales tax problems being faced by the exporters. The discussion includes refund claims on CD, definition of commercial exporters, same-state goods export condition, bank credit advice (BCA) requirement for commercial exporters.

The meeting reached a consensus on the following points:

(i) Refund claims on CD would be preferred. However, claim on documents would also be allowed for refund of first phase with condition that corrected CD may also be submitted till second phase of refund claim.

(ii) Regarding same state condition for commercial exporters, it was agreed that in the forthcoming notification relaxation of this condition would be allowed up to December, after which a new provision in the rules would be incorporated, whereby the commercial exporters will deposit tax on behalf of supplier and get refund of this input after export.

(iii) Regarding manufacturer-cum-exporter it was agreed that he would be producing single invoice to qualify for the refund of inputs.

(iv) Regarding the condition of bank credit advice (BCA), the commercial exporter would be allowed to file his claim and refund will be issued on production of BCA as against earlier position that did not allow filing of claim till BCA was received.

(v) It was agreed that exporters having cash in their cash books and making payment through bank would be entitled to refund without any insistence on reflection of payment proofs in their accounts.

(vi) Input of electricity and telephone was also allowed to be refunded in the administrative offices within the manufacturing premises.

(vii) Regarding deduction of sales tax due to less weight discovered at the time of shipment, it was commonly agreed that net weight would be taken as a basis for determining the deduction or not.