ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has collected Rs32.43 billion in taxes from the sugar sector in the first six months of current financial year against Rs29.30 billion collected in the same period last year, achieving a growth of 11 per cent.
The tax department said that this growth is due to the successful implementation of the track and trace system (TTS).
This encouraging outcome of the sugar sector’s digital monitoring shows that TTS is contributing significantly to the prevention of revenue loss and resulting in increased revenue collection, the FBR said in a statement on Friday.
FBR had moved to implement the track and trace system in the sugar sector in order to digitally monitor the production of entire industry before crushing season. In this regard, site surveys and factory visits were carried out in September, and Tri-Partite Agreements (TPAs) were signed with all 79 operational sugar mills of Punjab, Sindh and KP in October.
The installation process of TTS equipment was undertaken in October and November wherein all of the country’s sugar mills were delivered applicators along with tax stamps to be fixed on each sugar bag. FBR had notified that no bag will be allowed to be taken out from a production site or manufacturing facility without a tax stamp and Unique Identification Marking (UIM).
The TTS was formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan on November 23.
In order to ensure enforcement of movement of sugar bags with tax stamps, Inland Revenue Enforcement Network (IREN) was entrusted with the task to combat tax evasion in the sugar sector. Regional enforcement hubs all across Pakistan were tasked to conduct raids on non-tax paid sugar.
Since then, more than 65 raids have been conducted by regional IREN hubs of Rawalpindi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Quetta, and Peshawar.
