Pakistan Medical Association Rejects FBR’s Clinic POS Plan

The Pakistan Medical Association has opposed the Federal Board of Revenue’s proposed mandatory Point of Sale integration for doctors’ clinics, warning that healthcare facilities across the country could shut down if the tax authority does not withdraw what it called bureaucratic overreach.

The warning came after the FBR issued a notification directing several service providers, including medical facilities, to digitally integrate their operations with the tax system through electronic invoicing hardware and software. The move is aimed at improving documentation and widening the tax base.

The notified categories include restaurants, hotels, courier services, beauty salons, gyms, private schools and colleges, as well as clinics, diagnostic laboratories and private hospitals.

Under the notification, no taxable supply or service can be made except through integrated outlets, with real-time electronic invoices and six-year record retention.

A PMA delegation met FBR Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial to convey the medical community’s objections.

The association argued that healthcare is an essential professional service, not a commercial retail activity, and said treating clinics as retail outlets through mandatory POS integration is legally unjustified.

In a statement after the meeting, PMA Secretary General Dr Abdul Ghafoor Shoro criticized the tax authorities’ approach as rigid and warned that the medical fraternity would have no option except to shut down healthcare facilities and seek other work if the FBR continued to impose the system and ignored judicial decisions.