The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has started returning wrongly filed 'withholding tax statements' of salary by employers for filing the same on correct format.
Commenting on the decision, an Islamabad based tax expert, Tahir Razaq, told Business Recorder on Monday that employers would re-submit the withholding tax data pertaining to salaries in cases where the statements were submitted on non-prescribed format.
This action seemed to be taken to hunt for new taxpayers, whose tax is withheld, but they do not file the income tax returns. With this exercise, CBR is trying to broaden the tax base and increase the current number of taxpayers to an appropriate level.
According to CBR, the withholding tax statements for salary cases would be received up to September 15, 2005 and the software for capturing data from the withholding tax statements for salary cases would be implemented by September 15, 2005.
In some cases, people are using wrong forms for filing these statements, which is creating problems for income tax department. Similarly, old format has also been used by some of the companies, which needs rectification.
Sources said that CBR had received statements in multiple formats, which would create problems in data entry. Keeping this in view, the CBR has returned statements received on non-standard formats to the withholding tax agents. In this regard, it has been directed that all such agents would file statements in correct format.
When asked about the number of wrongly filed statements, sources said that many such statements have been filed on the incorrect format due to lack of taxpayer education among them.
On the directive of Board-in-Council, the CBR has issued a directive to field formations for compliance, sources said.
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