The Regional Tax Office Lahore and Regional Tax Office Lahore-II have processed 4, 080 Sales Tax refund claims amounting to Rs 1.93 billion during the first five months of the current financial year. Whereas in the corresponding period of the last year, Collectorate of Sales Tax and Federal Excise, Lahore had processed 2,197 claims amounting to Rs 1.12 billion, said a spokesman of the RTO here on Wednesday.
According to the spokesman, both the Regional Tax Offices (RTO-I and II) at Lahore, in line with the Federal Board of Revenue's resolve to facilitate taxpayers by quick disposal of pending refund claims, have maximised issuance of Sales Tax Refunds for reducing the liquidity problems of tax payers.
In this regard, the numbers of refund processing counters have also been increased and additional manpower deployed to process refunds especially in the Textile Sector. With the integration of Income Tax, Sales Tax and Federal Excise in to Inland Revenue Service (IRS), there has been an unprecedented increase of 86 percent in processing of refunds this year as compared to last year.
As many as 3,107 refund claims involving an amount of Rs 1.28 Billion have been cleared during the months of October and November, 2010, as against disposal of 543 claims involving refunds of Rs 257 million in the corresponding months of the last financial year. It is pertinent to mention that to ensure transparency and to forestall any possibility of loss of revenue due to unlawful refund claims; a stringent post refund audit is also being conducted by the RTOs, the spokesman concluded.