Track & Trace system ready to check revenue bleeding
Aftab Ahmed
Islamabad: To check the further revenue bleeding of more than reported to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the top four powerful sectors—Cigarette, Beverages, Sugar & Cement—will soon have a “Track & Trace” system, Shaukat Tareen shared with mediamen here on Saturday.
The last hitch to operationalize the company, who has been awarded a contract for implementing Trace & Track system of monitoring the above four sectors vigilantly, will be cleared by the court, the Minister when asked to reply when the blue-eyed powerful two sectors of cigarettes and beverages were deliberately omitted in the recently proposed federal budget.
No, the observation is not correct, the Minister replied, “The FBR is right after them as the recently awarded Trace & Track System for monitoring the revenue bleed of these four sectors.” Next week, the court will give a decision in favour of FBR and after that, the system will be operational to exactly report to FBR of their outputs or manufactured goods in the premises of the factory, the minister added.
Currently, all these four sectors including Cigarettes, Sugar, Beverages and Cement are contributing collectively Rs 240 billion to the national kitty in the form of various taxes and duties. With tax breakup of these sectors as; Cigarettes Rs 120 billion, Beverages Rs 70 billion, Sugar Rs 30 billion and Cement’s tax contribution significantly from Rs 25 billion in negative.
All these four sectors misreported their production and sold the products much below the printed price and involved in tax evasion. So the FBR has introduced this system of Trace & Track System to monitor the exact production of these sectors through digitals means, an official familiar with the development told this scribe.
The stalwarts of the tobacco industry hailed the ruling party and members of both provincial and national assemblies and upper house as well. One member of the Senate is reported to be the policy member of FBR, which is a direct conflict of interest.
Similarly, the Beverages industry is also owned by two powerful leaders of PTIs, two from South Punjab for one brand and the other from Lahore is also PTI senior leader. Both these sectors—Cigarettes and Beverages—were exempted from any kind of duties or other taxes in the newly tabled Finance Bill 2021-22.
The third powerful industry which is now under FBR’s radar for milking more revenues is the Sugar industry. Although FBR has rationalized GST @8% to 17 % not at Ex-Factory price but at the retail price. But FBR’s this move will only yield Rs 31 billion as they are contributing Rs 30 billion to the national kitty.
With the operationalizing of the Trace & Track System for Sugar Industry, it will help the FBR to check the misreporting and under-invoicing of sugar production for which the powerful sugar millers exploit the production either for sugar import or export for minting money.
Lastly, the cement sector, whose contribution to FBR’s revenue has gone to the negative side in the last two years after a contributing of Rs 25 billion tax in FY 2016.
