50,000 obtain e-enrollment from FBR: taxpayers' confidence in e-filing system reflects

A total of 50,000 taxpayers and e-intermediaries had obtained e-enrollment at FBR Portal till Saturday, reflecting confidence of the business community in the e-filing system. Sources told Business Recorder that the latest data on e-filing showed extraordinary improvement in the system. Over 43,300 persons have so far filed their sales tax returns electronically, out of 50,000 enrolments, they said.
According to FBR estimates, the number of return filers would cross 50,000 next week, against 65,000 manual return filers in the past. This would be a big achievement where the entire corporate sector and other registered sales taxpayers have finally decided to submit documents electronically.
Even advance tax administrations have not achieved the objective of e-filing. Sources said that mandatory filing of basic documents electronically would end the phenomenon of fraudulent sales tax refunds which was earlier obtained through manual filing of documents.
They said that they were surprised how some tax experts were making negative propaganda against the e-filing system. The data itself showed that most of the registered taxpayers had successfully filed returns electronically. It was not clear how the tax practitioners in Karachi and Lahore knew about the bandwidth of the Web-portal.
The Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) has been equipped with the unlimited bandwidth and there is no issue involved in slowdown of the system. The FBR has established Call Centres and Local Help Desks to facilitate the taxpayers facing problems in filing of returns electronically. The PRAL has been given assignment to carry out call analysis on regular basis to remove problems in the system, if any.