Mobile phone levy, taxes: SBP tells banks to ensure payment through OTC channel

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has advised banks to ensure payment of mobile phone levy and other taxes through Over-the-Counter (OTC) facility. The project of ''Online Collection of Government Taxes & Duties" was officially launched on March 20, 2018, enabling the taxpayers to pay the FBR taxes and duties using their internet banking accounts and ATMs. Subsequently, banks were advised to activate their OTC facility to facilitate their clients for payment of their taxes.
As per the SBP directives, the banks are required to enable their OTC channel for collection of taxes and duties. However, complaints are pouring in from different quarters, regarding non-entertaining of tax payment requests through banks'' OTC channel.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has formally launched a complaint with the State Bank that Payment Slip ID (PSIDs) generated by WeBOC system for payment of customs duty and other taxes especially the levy on Mobile devices are not being entertained, by the bank branches.
In view of these complaints, in March this year, SBP advised all banks to improve their customer services in facilitating taxpayers with due courtesy. However, despite that instructions there is no visible improvement for collection of taxes and duties OTC channel, as complaints from different quarters are still landing with SBP.
Therefore, SBP on Friday has advised banks to share the instructions of collection of taxes and duties through OCT channel with all branches across the country with the advice to ensure meticulous compliance and facilitate the taxpayers in payment of taxes and duties under the 1Link''s OTC facility. The branches will also prominently display on their respective Notice Boards that "Taxes and Duties are accepted here under the 1Link''s OTC facility, the circular said.
As per SBP directives, banks will also ensure that the branch staff has adequate understanding of the mechanism for collection of taxes and duties under the said facility.
The SBP has asked banks to submit report within 3 working days of the date of circular, ie, 27th March 2019 that these instructions have been communicated to all their branches for meticulous compliance and that the notice boards of branches are prominently displaying the message that "Taxes and Duties are accepted here under the 1Link''s OTC facility.
Previously, banks were asked to activate the OTC and online tax payment facilities by 31st October 2018. However, banks failed to facilitate their customers for collection of taxes and duties over the counter channel, of which SBP has taken serious notice and they have been asked to immediately implement the directions in this regard.