LAHORE: The Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) has urged the Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to extend the date of filing of sales tax returns for the tax period from December 2021 up to 15th February 2022.

In a letter to the chairman FBR, the PTBA has pinpointed discrepancies in the newly-introduced IRIS module creating difficulty/issues in the filing of sales tax returns.

The letter has pointed out that name of person appears instead of business name whereas a business is registered instead of person under the sales tax law which is creating hardship to identify the person/business entity.

Also, exclusion from 8B is not available where 80percent sales of goods have been made under 3rd Schedule of the Sales Tax Act, 1990. Similarly, both the Withholding Sales Tax credit and revised return tab are not available.

The letter has further pointed out that sales tax rate for vehicle below 1000CC at 12.5 percent is not available in the newly-introduced module. The registration number editing facility is also not available, which leads to deletion and re-entry of data/invoice.

The PTBA said that sales tax returns filed by the individual taxpayer where entries have been made through NTN, input credit to buyer is not available, which is causing hardship to file the return. Besides, sales or purchase invoices are not in chronological order (invoice number & date), which is difficult task to verify/re-check/reconcile the shuffled data/invoices.

It also pointed out that figures are shown in decimal numbers which creates confusion at the time of calculating liability or verify the data/invoices. Annexure-F is calculating double VAT (value addition charged at import stage to commercial importer) or giving double credit of VAT, which will result into loss to national exchequer. No effect of debit or credit note is allowing the IRIS system (sales return shall be reported in Annexure-C (reduction in sales/sales tax payable), whereas purchase return shall be reported in Annexure-A (reduction in purchase/input tax credit).

The letter said printing of return on three pages instead of one page (without annexure), a sheer wastage of national resources and loss of foreign exchange due to use of imported paper as printing of return without annexure is useless.

The PTBA urged the chairman FBR to take timely decision for correction of errors in the newly-introduced module of IRIS in the larger interest of genuine taxpayers as well as professional/legal fraternity, working hard to contribute to the national exchequer.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022