Business community calls for deferring implementation of POS system

LAHORE: The business community has called upon the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to defer the implementation of point of sale (POS) system till addressing all of their reservations, a statement said on Tuesday.

A delegation of Brandreth Road Traders Association told the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) office bearers that the business community has no knowledge about the POS system.

The delegation consisted of Zeeshan Khalil, Tahir Manzoor Chaudhry, Sh Sajjad Afzal, Ali Afzal and Syed Mukhtar Ali.

LCCI senior vice president Mian Rehman Aziz Chan said that many wholesalers got sales tax registration as retailers, saying that they must be given a fair chance to revise their business category in their sales tax registration.

He said that most of the traders and importers were registered with the relevant departments, but a large number of their customers and buyers were still unregistered.

The unlawful act of coercion and harassment by the FBR officials and intelligence department personnel should immediately be stopped, Chan said, urging that the RTOs/LTUs chief commissioners should be directed to hold a series of awareness sessions on POS at LCCI for enabling members to comply with the law without consulting the practitioners.

The LCCI would appreciate and provide necessary facilitation to such initiatives for creating awareness among its members, he said.

LCCI vice president Haris Ateeq was of the view that the implementation of POS software in the present scenario would discourage the registered taxpayers, enhance smuggling and adversely impact the tax revenue due to stagnation of the economic activities.

Moreover, cargoes in motion and shipments at the port would bear huge amounts of demurrages and penalties causing financial and mental agony to the business people.

“We believe that the POS law/policy should not only be uniform for all traders but also chalked out after due consultation with the stakeholders. Until then, the status quo should be maintained in the larger interest of national trade and economy,” he added.