Taxing IDPs: Court stays FBR’s notification to PDMA

Jalozai camp asked to pay millions in sales tax for fiscal year 2009-2010.

PESHAWAR: Although former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani exempted internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps from sales tax, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has sent a Rs13.4million sales tax notification to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government.

The FBR’s notification to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) for collecting tax for the fiscal year 2009-2010 from Jalozai IDP camp, trashes the orders of the former premier.

In order to prevent the FBR from seizing the PDMA’s accounts, the provincial government challenged the notification at the Peshawar High Court (PHC).

Deputy advocate general Lal Jan Khattak informed a PHC’s division bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and  Justice Irshad Qaisar that the notification was in contradiction to earlier orders and asked the court to put the notification on stay. After listening to Khattak’s arguments, the court stayed the notification.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2012.