ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will fix minimum value on supply of sugar for the purpose of sales tax calculation in consultation with the industry.
The FBR has constantly been engaged with the industry on the issue and taking input of the concerned industry for finalization of the said issue, Business Recorder reported on Sunday.
The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) has suggested that there shouldn’t be a minimum price for fixing sugar in a message to the FBR. Input and recommendations are also being sought once more by FBR in order to fix the sugar price by December 5, 2022.
The industry argued that the proviso to section 2(46) of the Sales Tax Act prohibits FBR from fixing ex-mill sugar value by exercising unrestrained, unstructured, and discretionary power.
According to the sugar industry the rate of sugar is not uniform throughout the season/ country and in fact fluctuates on monthly and even weekly/ daily basis and may vary on same day within same/ different cities making all such efforts to fix a uniform or notional price of sugar (even for purposes of sales tax calculation) arbitrary, absurd, discriminatory and unreasonable.
It is reiterated that prices should not be set by the Government at all and should be determined by market forces of supply and demand.
