The joint tax facilitation division for income and sales taxes is expected to begin functioning from January 2008 at Regional Tax Office here, bringing major operations of both the taxes under one roof.
RTO, Karachi, sources told Business Recorder on Tuesday that after the formal inauguration of the division almost all the services regarding the two taxes would be provided to taxpayers under one window operation.
Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Abdullah Yousuf is expected to inaugurate the division's office, sources added. Sources said that at initial stage, the returns' filing and payment would be started from the new office just after its inauguration followed by other operations of enforcement division.
But with the inauguration of the TFD, the RTO would formally start its functioning at Karachi, sources added. The integration of the two tax offices is being held in connection with the second phase of the reform plan of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to co-locate the offices of the sales tax and income tax at close proximity aiming at facilitating the taxpayers.
While in the phase one of the reform programme, the income tax structure had already been transformed on functional basis by introducing two layers of management (headquarter and regions) in FBR. Earlier four layers' structure was in practice inclusive of 5 regions, 32 zones, 757 circles and Deputy Commissioners in FBR making it difficult for taxpayers to have complete information at one place.
It is noted that the shifting of different offices of Federal Board of Revenue at Karachi is already continuing in full swing since last many months to the Income Tax House, situated at Shahrah-e-Kamal Ata Turk in order to bring all the operations of the FBR under one roof.