FAISALABAD, Jan 27: Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has agreed to further amend the SRO 575(1) 2002 allowing refund claims of commercial exporters for exports up to June 30, 2003 under refund rules 2000, providing a big relief to them. This relaxation was allowed by CBR in a meeting with a delegation of All Pakistan Cloth Exporters Association (APCEA).

Khurram Iftikhar, the Chairman, APCEA, briefing the Association members here on Monday said that eversince the promulgation of new refund rules (SRO 575(1)/2002 dated 31.8.2002) with cut off date as December 31 for filing of refund claims, huge amount of exporters was blocked and they were confronted with acute liquidity crunch. The matter was taken up at various fora but had remained inconclusive so far. Consequently the APCEA delegation took up the matter with the chairman, CBR, and, what it says, it convinced the authorities of the seriousness of the problem.

The CBR authorities realizing the gravity of the problem and not only extended the period for filing of refund claims but have also allowed refund on exports to be made up to June 30, 2003, which will be filed by the commercial exporters irrespective of date of filing. Khurram Iftikhar said that this was a singular success achieved by APCEA for commercial exporters.

Yet another concession allowed by the CBR was regarding the condition of submission of Bank Credit Advice (BCA) by exporters. Earlier submission of BCA was mandatory for filing of refund claim but now not only the refund claim could be filed without BCA, but refund would be issued against submission of bank guarantee for the same amount, he said.

Regarding the problems of manufacturing wastage, the CBR Chairman constituted a four-member Committee comprising Member Sales Tax, CBR and three representatives from APCEA i.e Khurram Iftikhar, Mushtaq Ali Cheema, and Mian Muhammad Latif.

This Committee would meet in 2nd week of February and work out the details of wastage in the manufacturing process permissible for exporters. The Committee would also take into consideration the ground covered so far by Chief of Export (Textiles) Muhammad Ashraf Khan in this regard.

Khurram Iftikhar making presentation by visual projection before the CBR officials highlighted the problems of Sales Tax being faced by the exporters.

He said that the condition of same state goods exports was heavily affecting the exporters as the commercial exporters who constituted substantial part of total exporters and had a major share in total exports of the country were unable to claim their refunds. He said that proposals of de- registration and constituting a separate company were not practicable under the existing rules and regulations as well as the business practices in the country.

The CBR authorities emphasised that the exporters should avail the facility of depositing tax himself on behalf of supplier and getting the refund after export. This was the only feasible way out under the present circumstances, said member, sales tax.

Regarding the amendment in Section 73 in Sales Tax Act, the CBR chairman assured that the case for extending the period under Section 73 present 120 days to 180 days would be strongly recommended to the Finance Ministry and since it was a genuine point, it was expected that it would be allowed by the Finance Minister and the legal provision would be suitably amended according to the expectations of the exporters.