The Senate Standing Committee has lauded the role of the Large Taxpayer Unit (LTU) for inculcating a habit of voluntary tax payment among the taxpayers and stressed the need for extending the system to other tax departments.
Giving his comments after an eloquent presentation on LTU by Shahid Jamal on Thursday Senator Ahmed Ali, chairman of the committee, particularly lauded the role of LTU in minimising element of corruption through automation and lack of human contact but said that there was a need of continuos monitoring of the system to ensure that the corruption, which is deeply imbedded in our culture might not make a comeback.
Responding to complaints about lack of medical facilities and proper educational allowance for children of CBR employees, Senator Ahmed Ali said that he would talk to the finance minister to solve financial problems of the revenue employees.
The senators, who included Professor Khurshid Ahmad, Asif Jatoi, Muhammad Akram and Dr Safdar Ali Abbasi, agreed to the basic philosophy of giving handsome remuneration to the tax officials to help them resist temptation for corruption but said that in some organisations, like Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), retired officers get medical and imported medicines even several years after their retirement yet their performance is not satisfactory.
PAYMENT OF REFUND: They asked a number of questions about delay in payment of refund to the taxpayers and said that this was the common suffering of the taxpayers. They said that the CBR fulfil their revenue targets by withholding billions of rupees of refund due to the taxpayers.
Responding to the questions, the LTU director general said that the Unit has no means to verify tax payment made through multiple challans and at different points in the country. "Refund can not be paid unless it is sure that the tax has been paid in treasury and also particulars of the taxpayers."
Shahid said that he had requested the CBR to allow the LTU to use one year revenue collection to clear all pending refund claims.
He said that the LTU has opened ledger account of all its 597 clients.
He said that there were plan to increase one hundred taxpayer cases in LTU. An online connection has been established with the Income Tax Building and Customs House and Sales Tax House to share data about taxpayers. There is also a plan to merge the Income Tax and Sales Tax departments for the purpose of tax collection and making refunds.
The director general LTU said that efforts were being made to improve the audit capabilities of tax officers and for this purpose, they would be assigned to different industries to understand their working.
The LTU officers are in constant touch with the research analysts companies attached to the Karachi Stock Exchange to keep an eye on the future growth prospects of different sectors so that revenue projections could be based on solid information. CBR has also been requested to fix targets for different sectors on their growth prospects.
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