The Federal Board of Revenue's Intelligence & Investigation - Inland Revenue Tuesday conducted a raid on a godown in district Sanghar and seized huge quantity of illicit/counterfeit and non-tax paid tobacco from the premises. It has been learnt that a team of Directorate General Intelligence & Investigation - Inland Revenue Hyderabad constituted by Dr Aslam Marri, Director I&I-IR Hyderabad, conducted the search of premises under the relevant provisions of FED and sales tax laws on 28th March.

The raid was conducted on the basis of credible intelligence received by the Directorate of Hyderabad that movement of illicit tobacco was spotted in Sanghar district and illegal non-tax paid and counterfeit cigarettes amounting to millions of sticks were stored in a large godown located at Khipro town of district Sanghar for onward distribution to different towns of interior Sindh.

During the raid, huge number of cigarettes amounting to approx 1.5-2 million in number were found lying in the godown, which were seized by the I&I-IR team as per law. Preliminary assessment of the stock reveals tax and duty evasion amounting to tens of millions of rupees on the seized the stock. The raid in Sanghar is part of FBR's Inland Revenue department's nationwide crackdown on the illicit and counterfeit tobacco, which is causing loss of billions of rupees to the national exchequer every year.

Given the gravity of tax and duty evasion in the multi billion rupees illegal tobacco sector, FBR has constituted a nation wide Enforcement Hub to tackle the illegal trade of tobacco. The nationwide Enforcement Hub is headed by the Chief Commissioner Rawalpindi, Tanveer Akhtar.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017