SOHAIL SARFRAZ

ISLAMABAD: Following a ruling of Law & Justice Division, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has given a major tax benefit to the ‘DTRE’ exporters by allowing them to avail benefits of concessionary SROs/notifications, resulting in reduced rate of leviable taxes.

In this regard, the Model Customs Collectorates’ (MCCs) have received a clarification from the FBR on the issue of statutory rate of taxes under Duty & Tax Remission for Exporters ( DTRE) DTRE scheme.

Experts told Business Recorder here on Monday that Law and Justice Division clarified that the DTRE user will be able to pay the leviable duties and taxes on unconsumed stock under DTRE scheme as per Statutory rules and orders/notifications., they added.

  According to the FBR, reference has been made to the Board’s letter C.No.4 (29) DTRE/201O-64766 dated 07.05.2012 on the subject noted above.

 The Board in its afore-stated letter has held that:

“all the concessionary/exemption regime have their own mechanism to facilitate the importer/exporter. Similarly, the export oriented schemes have also self-contained mechanisms to facilitate the importers/exporters. Concessionary/exemption regimes can be withdrawn at any point of time, therefore, concessionary regimes notified vide various notifications are not applicable to exemption regimes for exports like DTRE, Manufacturing Bond and Temporary Importation. In the light of the above, the Federal Board of Revenue is pleased to clarify that leviable duties means duty and taxes according to tariff structure (statutory rate of duty).”, FBR letter of 2012 added.

M/s. A.J. Textile Mills challenged the afore-stated Board’s clarification on the plea that unutilized imported raw material can be sold after availing generally available concessionary/exemption SROs, FBR said.

 In view of the above, Board sought a clarification from Law & Justice Division whether duty/taxes on the goods, imported under DTRE Rules and sold locally, are chargeable as per the statutory rates of duty or the importer can avail benefit of other concessionary SROs/notifications in vogue having general applicability. The Law & Justice Division has clarified that the importer can avail benefit of statutory rules and orders/notifications in vogue having general applicability.

In view of the above clarification of Law & Justice Division, the Federal Board of Revenue is pleased to withdraw its clarification C.No.4(29)DTRE/2010-64766 dated May 7, 2012.