The launching of e-filing of sales tax and federal excise returns is yet another step towards overall reforms programme in Central Board of Revenue (CBR), which is to be completed by 2009-2010.
This was stated by CBR Member Sales Tax Shahid Ahmed Khan while talking to media men, after attending a seminar on e-filing of sales tax & federal excise monthly returns arranged by Large Taxpayer Unit Lahore (LTU) in collaboration with National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (Pvt) Ltd (NIFT) here at Directorate General of Income Tax (Training) on Wednesday.
The event was well attended by senior executives of public and private limited companies. Director General LTU Omer Farooq, Collector Sales Tax & Federal Excise Muhammad Nazim Saleem and senior officials of income tax and sales tax departments were also present on the occasion.
Member Sales Tax maintained that e-filing was mandatory for all public and private limited companies and from now onward no manual return will be accepted. He said he was very optimistic about compliance of this system.
He added that he was cognisant of the fact that in the beginning there might be some problems, but with the passage of time the same will be settled. He pointed out that help desk will be set up in the collectorates of Sales Tax and LTUs to assist the taxpayers in case of any problem. Moreover, officials of the NIFT will be available in Karachi round the clock to listen to their complaints for prompt redresssal.
He claimed that Pakistan was pioneer in introduction of e-filing returns in the region and so far no other Saarc state had launched this facility. To a question, he said this facility had been introduced on the demands of taxpayers, as at the time of budget preparations most of them had urged the CBR to move fast towards this system.
To another question about internal audit, he said that desk audit has already been started in sales tax. To another query he said at present the total number of sales tax payers was 135, 000 and CBR was making increase in it at 15 percent ratio on quarterly basis.
Earlier, addressing the seminar and replying participants' questions, Member Sales Tax said: "We want to move towards a paperless environment, which is also vital for attracting foreign investment in the country. When a foreign investor comes to Pakistan, first of all he questions about our taxation system." So keeping in view this aspect, CBR is benefiting from IT to move towards good governance and transparency, to facilitate the taxpayers, in line with the policy of the government, he said.
According to him electronic filing will also eliminate the element of delay in receipts of returns, which was a big problem in manual submission, and it will also minimise contact between the tax collectors and the taxpayers. Moreover, through this system, more reliable data of taxpayers will be available to CBR, he viewed.
He said that e-filing will be mandatory for corporate taxpayers and there was no change in the date of filing of returns. He also claimed that 70 percent of taxpayers were happy over introduction of this facility and only consultants were showing resentment. "I hope that now 75 percent revenue will be captured through e-filing system." He said that CBR would also launch a media campaign to create awareness among the taxpayers about e-filing of returns.
Earlier, Ahsen Rasheed of NIFT gave a detailed presentation on procedures of filing and highlighted the benefits of the system. He said that a centralised and friendly e-mail based system for taxpayers had been introduced and submission of sales tax and federal excise returns to local collectorates had been enabled. Its salient features are; immediate acknowledgement of submission of returns by CBR, cost saving and reduced processing time on the part of CBR, a major step towards modernisation of tax payment system, user-friendly system.
He said this system provides highest security taxpayers and CBR, while the submission of returns is legally recognised with digital certificates. Highlighting key aspects of e-filing he said that taxpayer can e-mail from anywhere, anytime and CBR will issue a system-generated acknowledgement to taxpayers confirming that the e-mail has been received.
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