The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has notified rules for new Export Facilitation Scheme 2021 which will be effective from August 14,2021. The new Export Facilitation Scheme has been approved by the federal government and passed by parliament under Finance Act 2021, said a press release issued by FBR on Monday. This scheme will run parallel with existing schemes like manufacturing bond, DTRE and export oriented schemes for two year. The existing old schemes shall be phased out in next two years and will be fully replaced by Export Facilitation Scheme-2021. EFS 2021 rules can be accessed at official website of FBR. The users of this scheme will include exporters (manufacturers cum exporters, commercial exporters, and indirect exporters), common export houses, vendors and international toll manufacturers. The users of this scheme shall be subject to authorisation of inputs by the collector of customs and Director General Input Output Organisation (IOCO). Inputs include all goods (imported or procured local) for manufacture of goods to be exported. These include raw materials, spare parts, components, equipment, plant and machinery. No duty and taxes shall be levied on inputs imported by the authorized users and local supplies of inputs to the authorized users shall be zero rated. Through this new scheme, Common Export House will import inputs duty and tax free for subsequent sale to the authorised users especially SMEs. This scheme has also allowed international toll manufacturing within Pakistan. Under the said scheme, minimum but necessary documentation and securities based on category and profile of the applicant, user or exporter will be required. This scheme will encourage new entrants and SMEs. This scheme will be completely automated under WeBOC and PSW where users of the Scheme and regulators (IOCO, Regulator Collector, PCA, etc.) shall be integrated through WeBOC and PSW and communicate through these systems. The focus of the scheme is on post clearance compliance checks and audits. Under this new scheme, authorisation and utilisation period has been enhanced from two years to five years. It is expected that Export Facilitation Scheme 2021 shall reduce cost of doing business and cost of tax compliance, improve ease of doing business, reduce liquidity problems of exporters by eliminating Sales Tax refunds and duty drawback for the users of Scheme and shall attract more users and shall ultimately promote exports.