The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has constituted a Task Force to expedite clearance of the sales tax and federal excise refund stuck up in the field formations, resulting in considerable delay in payment of admissible refund claims. Sources told Business Recorder here on Monday that the FBR has issued a notification, following decision of the board-in-council, to ensure expeditious issuance of the valid/legitimate held up sales tax refunds.
The Task Force has been set up in Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad to clear pending refund claims on priority basis. The FBR has directed the Chief Commissioners of Regional Tax Office (RTOs) to submit the status of refund pendency by September 30, 2010 to check the number of cleared refund claims.
According to the Terms of Reference of the Task Force, the special teams of tax officials at Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad would ensure that whenever the claim is liable to rejection for any reason, the rejection order is passed and communicated to the refund claimant within ten days of the receipt of auditor's/system report. The Task Force would ensure that in all such cases where the system has processed and cleared the claims, the auditor's report is submitted to the Additional Commissioner for further action by October 31, 2010.
The Terms of Reference for the Task Force teams would co-ordinate with the FBR Commissioners (Enforcement) for working out the exact pendency in the specified format by September 30, 2010. The Task Force would also ensure that in all such cases where the RPOs are ready, cheques are issued to the taxpayers within three days.
The FBR has made it compulsory for the Task Force to ensure that where refund claims have been processed through the System and cleared by the auditor, the RPOs have to finalise cheques and issue to the taxpayers within one week of the receipt of the auditor's report. The Task Force would ensure that in all such cases were the refund claims have not been fed into the System, the entire exercise of processing, clearance etc is completed by November 15, 2010.
Each of the Task Force teams has been directed by the FBR to plan and work in complete cohesion with the concerned Chief Commissioner so that the entire backlog is smoothly liquidated in the shortest span of time and in the most transparent manner. The Heads of the Task Force teams shall furnish a status report on daily basis in the attached format to the FBR by September 28, 2010.
This exercise is to be taken up in the right earnest and the Heads of the Task Force teams shall also regularly report on the performance level of the officers, the FBR added. Meanwhile, an order of the FBR on the issue said that in pursuance of the Executive Order issued by the Chairman, Federal Board of Revenue, following Task Force has been constituted in the first phase, with the objective of ensuring expeditious issuance of the valid/legitimate held up sales tax refunds: Team Number-I for Regional Tax Office (RTO), Karachi.
Rehmat Ullah Khan Wazir, Commissioner, LTU; Dr Mohammad Ali, Additional Commissioner, LTU; Saifullah Khan, Additional Commissioner, LTU; Mirza Nasir Ali, Deputy Commissioner, LTU and Tariq Tunio, Deputy Commissioner, LTU. Team II for RTO, Faisalabad. Mohammad Asif, Commissioner, RTO-I, Lahore and Syed Nadeem Hassan, Additional Commissioner, RTO-I, Lahore. Team-III for RTO, Lahore.
Ashraf Khan, Commissioner, LTU, Lahore; Aftab Bhatti, Additional Commissioner, RTO-II, Lahore; Amir Ameen Bhatti, Deputy Commissioner, LTU, Lahore. Team-IV for RTO-II, Lahore. Iram Adnan, Commissioner, RTO-I, Lahore; Irfan Raza, Additional Commissioner, RTO-I, Lahore; Naveed Ahmed Nawab, Additional Commissioner, RTO-I, Lahore.