The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Sunday announced to suspend the two-day old new compulsory legal requirement of making over Rs250,000 business-related payments only through digital mode. The mandatory legal requirement has initially been suspended for 40 days, as neither the business community nor the banking system is prepared to deal with this. The compulsory digital payment requirement had been enforced through a presidential ordinance instead of bringing the bill to parliament for a debate and collective decision making. While explaining the reason behind introducing digital payment, the FBR said that currently grey transactions (hiding/suppressing sales invoices and un-reconciled payments through open/revolving cheque or cash) are highly prevalent in business value chains. Similarly, cross cheques/open cheques do not carry the “purpose” of the payment or its relationship with the invoice.

Source: The Express Tribune September 20, 2021 04:52 UTC