Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) has asked the International Finance Corporation (IFC) World Bank group, to give technical and financial support in order to strengthen the functions of provincial sales-tax-collection-body, and a proposal in this regard had been moved to IFC authorities a few weeks back, Business Recorder learnt here on Thursday. The authorities of SRB had moved a proposal to the IFC on the offer which IFC gave during a meeting held at SRB head office on May 14, sources said.
A mission of IFC comprising Abdul Hakim N K Assad, Mohamed H Baider and Asfandyar Ali Khan had visited the SRB head office and held discussion with SRB authorities over possibility of identifying a project on administration of tax collection, on sales tax on services future roadmap, and needs of the SRB and IFC, if any required in the matter of capacity building, sources said.
Former Chairman SRB Nazar Hussein Mehar apprised the mission about the background leading to the establishment of SRB, registration of taxpayers and collection matters, response of taxpayers, automation systems developed by SRB itself, future road map and needs of SRB.
The Mission enquired in detail about the registration process and the transfer of data, its current status. The Mission was informed that the SRB had a strong registration system which registered the persons by use of their National Tax Number (NTN) because all persons liable to be registered under the Sindh Sales Tax on Services Act 2011. They were also told that SRB and FBR had a mutual agreement to access each other's data, sources further informed.
The IFC mission had showed interest to help-out the SRB in future particularly in areas of tax collection - how to check sales tax on services evasion/avoidance, develop and support the capacity to monitor and track transactions, develop and support the capacity to conduct risk based audits, support for different IT solutions for administering tax collection by road mapping IT based needs and prioritising them for implementation in phases, sources told. In this connection, a high level official told Business Recorder that SRB had sent proposal to IFC but reply had not came yet.