The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to tighten its grip on the retailers and warned that those integrated with the Point of Sale (POS) system must have credit and debit machines at their outlets.
According to a notification, as defined in section 2(43A) of the Sales Tax Act, 1990, all Tier-I Retailers are expected to maintain the highest standards of documentation, reporting, and transparency. They are integrated with the FBR’s IT system for real-time reporting of their economic transactions in their endeavors to achieve such high standards.
It was also noted that many integrated Tier-I Retailers indulge in making cash transactions, which mitigates the overall scheme of things and the intended objectives.
Therefore, it is pertinent to note that Rule 150ZEB(II) of the Sales Tax Rules, 2006, mandates that each Tier-I Retailer “must have the facility of debit and credit card machine installed at each notified outlet and the sales through debit or credit cards shall not be ordinarily refused”.
Accordingly, all integratable Tier-I Retailers are to have debit/credit card machines installed at their outlets and IRS Field Formations to ensure implementation of the rules in this respect.
The FBR estimates that around 2,250 retailers have been integrated with the FBR’s POS system so far. Around 11,000 outlets of retailers in Tier-1 had been integrated with the POS system, adding that a total of 16,000 cash counters were also integrated with the POS system.