The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has admitted that around Rs 200 billion sales tax/income tax refund claims and customs duty drawback claims are pending with the tax department against Rs 250 billion claimed by exporters. Sources told Business Recorder here on Friday that around Rs 130 billion sales tax refund claims including deferred claims of exporters are pending with the FBR. "If we include income tax refund claims and customs duty rebate, the pending amount of claims come to around Rs 200 billion", the Board acknowledged.

FBR has paid Rs 68 billion refunds during July-April (2017-18) as compared to Rs 53 billion issued in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year, recording an increase of 28 percent, the official said.

Exporters, including textile associations stated that their pending refund claims are around Rs 250 billion and not Rs 200 billion - customs rebate claims are approximately Rs 50 billion and sales tax refund claims including deferred claims total approximately Rs 200 billion.

There seems to be an inconsistency of around Rs 50 billion between the pending refund claims cited by FBR officials and those claimed by the exporters.

When asked about timeframe for releasing these pending refunds, sources said so far no specific date has been finalized for clearing the entire payment in one go, but added that all claims would be cleared through an electronic system. Under direct credit facility, the amount would be transferred into the accounts of taxpayers.

FBR officials claim that sales tax refunds of Rs 26.43 billion of ROPs were cleared up to April 2017 through the electronic system; and cleared sales tax refunds of over Rs 15 billion of ROPs have been issued up to Aug 2017.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2018