The Large Taxpayer Unit (LTU), Lahore, has apprehended that serious problems in the e-filing system, through e-portal, might result in reverting to the old system of manual filing of income tax returns for the tax year 2007.
Sources told Business Recorder on Friday that Karachi and Lahore LTUs, dealing with top business companies, have repeatedly complained about the new e-filing system.
Now, the Director General, LTU, Lahore, has informed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) about the inbuilt faults in e-filing system, which have not been corrected by Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL).
According to Lahore LTU, taxpayers are facing extreme difficulty in online filing of statements and income tax returns through the newly launched e-portal system. The system is also being tested with the help of user login allocated by PRAL. One of the technical problems in the new system is that it has failed to register complete data on the returns. The performance of e-portal has reflected that the taxpayers had to file the annual returns for 2007 on hard copies.
Except filing annual returns manually, the taxpayers would find no other option under the present circumstances, DG, Lahore LTU said. Highlighting another problem in the system, the DG said that in the absence of data submitted under section 165 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, neither any information could be prepared nor any analysis could be made, resulting in waste of time. The statements filed under section 165 contain information about the name and address of each person from whom tax was deducted and total amount of payment made. The information about the annual statements could also not be compiled due to the new system.
The developers of the system should immediately take measures to remove the bugs from the system for smooth functioning of the system and provide user's access to the statements and returns filed electronically. It would be difficult to detect non-filers of income tax returns due to fault in the e-filing system, he said.
Even no data is available regarding number of taxpayers registered in the e-filing system, Lahore LTU DG added. It is important to mention that Karachi LTU had also expressed serious concern over the filing of sales tax and federal excise returns through web-portal. Meanwhile, taxpayers opined that the sales tax returns were also filed manually as the system was not accepting annual returns electronically.
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