ISLAMABAD: The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has taken prompt action on hundreds of complaints filed by exporters against the delay in payment of sales tax refunds under the Fully Automated Sales Tax e-Refund System (FASTER).
Sources told Business Recorder that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had received recommendations of the FTO Office in a large number of complaints to pay admissible amount of refunds to the exporters, who had duly filed annexure-H form (stock statement) with sales tax return forms.
Out of total complaints filed by the exporters with the FTO, around 70-80 percent were related to sales tax.
The FBR has also received instructions from the FTO Office to submit the compliance report within 45 days period, they added.
The exporters have lauded the efforts of the FTO Office on taking prompt action in issuing appropriate orders to the FBR.
The exporters of five leading sectors were required to submit annexure-H form (stock statement) with sales tax return for receiving sales tax refunds into their bank accounts within 72 hours under the FASTER system, but due to delay in payments, the exporters approached the FTO for redressal of their grievances.
When FASTER was launched, the FBR claimed that refunds under the FASTER would be paid without any human intervention.
The FASTER system is so fast that the refund payment order would be generated without approval of the Chief CASTRO, said the FBR chief Sales Tax and Federal Excise (Policy).
The exporters would themselves declare about the taxable purchases and actual consumption of input goods used in exports under the stock statement to be filed under annexure-H of the sales tax monthly return.
The process of filing of sales tax claim (with annexure-H) and credit of the verified amount into the exporters' bank account would take 72 hours.
The experience of the FBR with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) shows that the SBP credits the amount into the exporters account within 24 hours of the issuance of advice by the FBR.
The sales and purchase description have to be streamlined through description matching, the FBR officials said when the system was launched.
The FBR is optimistic that the refund amount may be credited even less than 72 hours into the exporters' bank account in the future.
The FBR claimed that it had fulfilled the promise of the business community for speedy payments of refunds under the new system.
After withdrawal of the sales tax zero-rating facility on local sales, the major apprehension of the business community was timely payment of refunds.
The issue has been timely addressed through implementation of the FASTER system.
As soon as refund claimant files annexure-H (stock statement) with the return, the FBR will consider that the claim has been duly submitted and start processing of refund claims through the FASTER system, and the verified amount of claims would be credited directly into the exporters' account within 72 hours, the senior sales tax official stated.
The FBR has also chalked out the "internal risk-based parameters", which would be applied on refund claims.
The FBR said that the data provided in the monthly return would be treated as data in support of refund claim, and no separate electronic data would be required to be provided.
The amount specified in column 29 of the return, as prescribed in the form STR-7, will be considered as amount claimed, once the return has been submitted along with all prescribed annexes thereof, the FBR officials added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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