Liquidity crunch: Steel melters urge FBR to release refunds

PSMA claims that just eight furnace melting units had an accumulated pending refund of approximately Rs270 million

KARACHI:


The Pakistan Steel Melters Association (PSMA) has urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to release refunds of surplus withholding tax of steel melters.


Withholding sales tax is collected at the stage of raw-material import and is supposed to be adjusted against the General Sales Tax (GST) on electricity bills of steel plants.


PSMA wrote a letter to FBR mentioning that just eight furnace melting units had an accumulated pending refund of approximately Rs270 million till mid November 2014.

Steel industry officials believe that since the collection amount has been increased to Rs5,600 per ton in the current budget from the previous Rs1,600, the total surplus withholding GST refundable could be approximately Rs1 billion.

The industry believes that the only way to have the withholding tax refunded by the government is to adjust it against their electricity bills.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2014.

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