Performance of Expeditious Refund System: export bodies criticise RTO's report

Export associations have highly appreciated the performance of the Expeditious Refund System (ERS) of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), which has facilitated the exporters in obtaining sales tax refund in a hassle-free environment through electronic system.
Commenting on the report of the Chief Commissioner Regional Tax Office (RTO), Karachi on ERS, and the Chairman Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturing Association Saleem Parekh told Business Recorder here on Tuesday that after introduction of the system, human intervention was restricted to the great extent.
The exporters are quite satisfied by the performance of the ERS, which process the refund claim on the basis of data electronically transmitted to the system almost on real time bases. This is one of the major achievement of the current government specially finance ministry.
He informed that they have serious reservation regarding claim of the RTO that after introduction of the ERS quantum of the refunds was increased abnormally. He said that if any such increase has been witnessed, then field formation is responsible to review the increase and ask clarification from the specific individuals whose refunds have increased. He totally disagreed with the contention that facility of ERS be further curtailed.
He further stated that already ERS facility extended with limited scope and current, was only available to the manufacturer cum exporter, all other segments of the refund claimants required to seek refund as per past practice. Export associations have urged the Finance Ministry and Chairman Federal Board of Revenue to keep the system continue as it has been proved to be one of the major tax reforms introduced by the government.
Another prominent business leader, Jawed Bilwani, Chief Co-ordination Value added textile has also raised its concern over recently reported news about the field formation regarding problems in the ERS. He said that huge amount of refund of their member exporters pertaining to even before zero-rated regime are yet pending on one or another pretext. However their all current refunds were settled with almost zero outstanding after introduction of ERS.
He stated that all over the world where sales tax is applicable in VAT mode, electronic refund processing systems are successfully operating. If there is any shortcoming in the system let the system operate and share its limitation with trade body to make the system more effective and viable. He conveyed his dis-satisfaction with the report, which claimed that the ERS system is highly abused. The practical situation is entirely different from the reported news about the problems in the ERS, Jawed Bilwani added.