Daily Times

Following the implementation of the fixed retailers’ tax introduced in the Finance Act 2022, quite an unrest was observed in the country.

After several protests staged in different parts of the country, the Federal Minister of Finance & Revenue, Miftah Ismail assured shopkeepers and small retailers of removing all taxes being collected through electricity bills. However, to date, no such notification has been issued by the finance ministry, and as a result, the power distribution companies continue to charge it in their bills to retailers.

In the absence of this notification, approximately 1.5 million retailers are boycotting to pay their electricity bills which is resulting in the growth of circular debt by about 1.4 billion every day. It is estimated that, so far, 20 billion has already been added to the circular debt, specifically because of this ongoing issue.

Per the Finance Act 2022, effective July 1, 2022, Federal Government introduced fixed slabs to increase tax collection from retailers. While retailers were previously charged on a percentage basis linked to their consumption, three slabs were introduced through this recent revision with a minimum tax liability of PKR 3,000 even if the energy consumption by the commercial consumers stood at 0 units. In addition, the tax amount was double in case the retailers’ name was not appearing in the FBR’s Active Taxpayer List (ATL).

Widespread public outcry from Retailers across Pakistan, demonstrations, and social media backlash resulted in the Federal Minister of Finance & Revenue, Miftah Ismail, issuing multiple statements about the reversal of this Sales Tax. Per his Twitter statement, initially, the tax was supposed to be withdrawn for users with power consumption below 150. However, his subsequent statement reversed this for all retailers for one year.