Pakistan Revenue’s New Mantra: ‘No Production Without Taxation’

During a recent symposium on the implementation of track and trace in the fertiliser sector, Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) declared that, given the proven success of the system on tobacco and sugar, its aim going forward was to ensure ‘no production without taxation’ across the country.

The track and trace system is provided by the consortium of Authentix, MITAS Corporation and AJCL Private Ltd, under a five-year licence agreement awarded in March 2021. The agreement is for the provision of automated production monitoring, product movement control and product authentication, on tobacco products, sugar, fertiliser and cement.

The system consists of secure and non-intrusive technologies installed at manufacturing lines, as well as dedicated hand-held equipment, smartphone applications, and secure, digitised tax stamps.

The programme was rolled out on tobacco products and sugar in 2021, and according to the FBR, it has been successful in increasing visibility on production lines and generating higher tax revenues.

FBR’s Project Director Track and Trace, Tariq Hussain Sheikh, commented that the majority of companies in the sugar sector, for example, had paid four times more taxes this year than last year.

Apart from the four sectors covered by the licence agreement, the FBR, spurred on by the success of the system, said it would ultimately be extending the system to other sectors of the economy, thereby reinforcing its commitment to the ‘no production without taxation’ mantra.