A Central Data Warehouse is being established in Central Board of Revenue (CBR) to monitor all stages from filing of returns payment of tax, verification, tallying and refund of sales tax to cut out delays in refund to exporters and to introduce hassle free refund regime.
This was disclosed by Abdullah Yousaf, Chairman, CBR addressing the members of All Pakistan Cloth Exporters Association (APCEA) in a meeting here on Thursday.
He said CBR was fully cognisant of the importance of Sales Tax refund for exporters and of smooth working and implementation of Sales Tax regime to facilitate the exporters to concentrate on marketing and promotion of exports. It was in this context that the post of the Member Exports in CBR has been revived and a senior and experienced officer has been posted.
Explaining the inherent irritants in existing system, he identified refund as one of the major irritant in sales tax environment and said that an automatic system should be devised with minimum discretionary power of the tax officials.
Spelling out the concept of Central Date Warehouse (CDW), he said that it would have complete record of the returns submitted by registered parties. The applications for refund will be verified and paid under a system with minimum involvement of individuals.
He also stressed upon the exporters to give their inputs to further improve this system, which should efficiently deliver in the fast changing environment of globalisation.
He asked chairman APCEA to send a delegation to Islamabad to have meetings with
member exports and member ST to discuss the modalities for this system "I will also like to share views with them after fundamental issues are sorted out with necessary solutions", he added.
He also indicated that a team of tax officials would also be sent to UK to study their system. "This is the most appropriate shortcut instead of sticking to hit and trial method", he added.
Commenting upon the merits of this proposed system, he said that this system would tally and verify the invoices and transfer their refund electronically without any wastage of time. However, it would be possible if missing links were put in place, he said.
He also assured that some via media would be evolved for the early disposal of old refund cases of exporters.
Responding to a question, the chairman Central Board of Revenue (CBR) assured the exporters that refund of sales tax would not be stopped in the next two months on account of budget and they would continue to get their refund claims as usual.
Earlier, in his address of welcome, Ahmad Kamal, Chairman APCEA said that as we are heading towards the era of free trade in 2005. It is imperative that exporters should be concentrating to improve production efficiency and marketing strategy to increase our market share. He further observed that in Pakistan due to complicated tax system most of time and energy of exporters is wasted in fulfilling the requirements of tax office and in getting their refunds.
Drawing attention towards other countries in the region, he said, we have to compete with China and India. Both these countries are extending huge support to their export sector.
Though Faisalabad's Sales Tax and custom machinery are doing their utmost to facilitate exporters by sanctioning refunds to the best of their competence but the procedure is so complicated and cumbersome that huge amount of money is blocked in refunds and exporters are facing liquidity crunch. He demanded to simplify this process, profiling of exporters should be prepared and the companies with clean background should be entitled to get their refunds without pre-audit in 72 hours.
He further demanded that there should be one slab of Sales Tax and rate of tax should be reduced to the realistic level of 10 percent, so that evasion due to unrealistic rates could be avoided.
About tariff free import of machinery, he said that exporters and manufacturers are engaged to upgrade their production facilities by importing plant and machinery. He appreciated government steps for allowing the exporters to import machinery in SRO 554 without duty.
He emphasised that machinery parts should also be allowed under this SRO. More over there is restriction that the machinery manufactured in Pakistan cannot be imported under this SRO.
He said that exporters supported government policy to protect local industry, but in fact some items, which are not produced locally, should included in this list.
These items are listed but are not actually manufactured in the country. He suggested that a committee should be made which should evaluate genuineness of this list.
He further stated that there is huge crisis regarding the availability of yarn to the export sector due to shortage of raw cotton. Polyester Fiber and Polyester Chips are the next best substitute of cotton.
He demanded that import duty on these raw materials as well as dyes and chemicals used as input of value added export goods should be reduced in order to make goods cost effective and competitive in international market.
Regarding Income Tax, he said that it is learnt that section 143-B of Income Tax is being removed.
This facility had given relief to the exporters and has saved lot of their time, which was otherwise required to attend the Income Tax offices. He also demanded that section 143-B of Income Tax Act must be continued.
He was quite optimistic that government has deputed an experienced and expertise CBR chairman who will create a pleasant and friendly relationship between tax collectors and taxpayers, which shall lead Pakistan's economy to the level of, developed countries.
Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmed former chairman APCEA presented a souvenir to the chairman CBR while Mian Naeem Omer thanked the participants.
Comments
Comments are closed.