National Sales Tax Return module: PTBA urges FBR chief to remove glitches

LAHORE: The Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) approached the chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for the removal of restrictions in the National Sales Tax Return module of the IRIS e-portal after receiving complaints from its member and affiliated tax bars.

A letter signed by Rana Munir Hussain and Ch Qamar uz Zaman, President and General Secretary PTBA respectively, was dispatched to Chairman FBR Asim Ahmed the other day, listing the irritants in the e-portal.

The irritants of the portal included automated disallowance of input tax credit and its repetition in the subsequent months once declined in a particular month by the system without assigning any reason to it, non-uploading of export and import goods declaration in the returns, non-filing of annexure-H over the last two months, system check on the order for filing sales tax returns for various tax periods, reflection of irrelevant data, non-compliant to the command for challan generation and debarring sellers to enter credit note.

According to PTBA, automated disallowance of input tax credit in terms of Section 7(2) read with section 8(1) of the Sales Tax Act, 1990 is unlawful, as it should not be an automated action but the concerned Commissioner Inland Revenue should be allowed under the law.

Also, it has been pointed out that if certain input tax credit has been disallowed in a particular month, the system continues to disallow the same input tax credit even in the subsequent month which is tantamount to double jeopardy. It also reflects that system gets stuck for certain checks/restrictions that was unjust and unlawful.

The letter has further stated that the export and import goods declaration are not being uploaded in the National Sales Tax Return, which is leading to late filing of returns. In the case of import, missing of the import declaration will create differences in sales tax declarations and income tax declarations, which will lead to another door of unnecessary litigation.

Similarly, Annexure-H is not filed in the last two months, which needs immediate action and enabling the exporters/taxpayer to claim their genuine refunds.

In addition, the National Sales Tax Return Module is restricting the order of tax periods despite that each tax period is independent and its liability is also used to be determined separately.

The PTBA authorities have also mentioned that the National Sales Tax Return module has been reflecting irrelevant data, hence, any inadvertent claim thereof is making them liable for coercive actions, unnecessarily.

Challan generation both income tax and sales tax is still being processed in the old system, which is very slow and time-consuming. The system is also restricting sellers from entering credit notes. This restriction has repercussions on the sellers as the determination of their sales tax liability for a particular month is now subjected to the prior filing of that month’s sales tax return by the purchaser.

The PTBA has urged chairman FBR to take stock of the situation for an early resolution of the technical glitches.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023