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Cloth invoice be made mandatory for ST refund: APCPA

RECORDER REPORT

FAISALABAD: The invoice of cloth produced by the powerlooms should be made mandatory for sales tax refund and the refinancing schemes be extended to powerloom sector, said Rana Ikhlaq Ahmad, Chairman, All Pakistan Cotton Powerlooms Association, here on Sunday.

In a statement, the APCPA chief said that the association had put before the Federal Minister for Finance, Shaukat Aziz, a number of proposals to pull out the powerlooms sector from grave and constant crisis.

He demanded that the sales tax refund over electricity bills of the weaving sector be made easy, the forced registration of the sales tax be stopped and the notices issued for the recovery of the sales tax be withdrawn forthwith, besides abolishing the sales tax on electricity and other utility bills.

Rana Ikhlaq Ahmad said that the powerlooms sector produces 89 percent of the cloth and provides livelihood to over one million families.

This industry, he added, is confronted with prolonged crisis and for the last five years the export of cloth is static at 1,320 million square metres.

He said that the government should provide soft-term loans to powerloom sector and accord concession in taxes and other levies so that the powerloom sector should not only modernise their units but double the production of cloth.

Commenting on the general sales tax issue, the APCPA chairman opined that the powerloom sector be completely exempted from GST and other levies and in case the Sales Tax was imminent, it should be recovered at source (i.e. production of yarn).

He further demanded that the powerlooms sector should also be exempted from income tax, wealth tax and other federal and provincial taxes/duties.