Sales tax: Petition filed at PHC to end ‘discrimination’

Cherat Cement Factory requests court to include K-P among provinces where sales tax is adjusted to federal package.

PESHAWAR: A writ petition has been filed at the Peshawar High Court against the non-adjustment of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) sales tax into the federal tax package.

The petition was filed by Cherat Cement Factory through its counsel, Ishaq Ali Qazi, and stated that the provincial government started collecting sales tax in 2013. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had stated at the time that the provincial sales tax would be adjusted in the federal tax.

However, a notification issued on March 26 this year informed that the Balochistan Sales Tax Act, 2011, Sindh Sales Tax Act, 2010, Punjab Sales Tax Act, 2010 and Islamabad Sales Tax Act, 2001 were adjusted in the federal sales tax but K-P was not mentioned in the notification.  Ignoring K-P is discriminatory as FBR had assured the business community that the simultaneous collection of sales tax by federal and provincial governments would be adjusted accordingly, stated the petition.

The petitioner requested the high court that upon accepting his petition, K-P needs to be included in the list of provinces that have been adjusted in the federal sales tax so as to end this discrimination.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2014.