The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has allowed the large companies to file monthly withholding statements at one station where their income is being assessed to remove procedural difficulties faced by the withholding agents.
Sources told Business Recorder on Thursday that CBR Chairman M. Abdullah Yusuf has taken the decision during the last National Tax Conference to facilitate the withholding agents particularly banks.
It is learnt that the SME Bank had made a presentation to the tax authorities about the problems being faced by it in the field formations pertaining to filing of withholding statements at different places. The CBR examined the matter in the light of the recommendations made by the commissioners of Large Taxpayer Units (LTUs).
The CBR chief issued on spot instructions to the Regional Commissioners of Income Tax (RCITs) to allow the withholding agents to file statements at the headquarter where their income tax assessment is being done like LTU. The big companies would not be required to separately file statements in regional bank''s branches.
Under the new arrangement, withholding agent would file only one statement on national basis at the department responsible for tax assessment of a company. The withholding agent would file statement on behalf of all regional offices at the place where it is filing income tax return.
The company would not file statement at the regional branches to streamline the existing procedure. Sources said the decision would help in checking the previous practice of filing multiple statements at different places. For example, withholding statements were filed at each place of deduction of tax by banks'' branches causing a lot of difficulty and cost of compliance for discharging withholding obligations.