ISLAMABAD: The sales tax law on point of sale (POS) system of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) should provide for clear performance bases parameters penalisation, blacklisting or cancellation POS Integrator/ vendor license.

According to a report prepared by an industry expert for the FBR-IT and PRAL Design and Development teams, it highlights critical points in the system which are inherent due to legislative and technical specifications. The report contains technical analysis of Sales Tax Rules, 2006 and online Integration of Tier-I retailers. It also contains solution to the public and media reports on violation of Sales Tax Invoicing by the Tier-I retailers and POS integrators.

The cases of few big retailers and their POS integrators/ vendors were anonymously investigated and a brief report is being submitted to plug gaps in FBR POS System.

The retailers and POS vendors are taking advantage of the POS system, according to an internal report on the POS system.

The administrative issues revealed that the IT-IS Audit section, independent of Chief (IT) must be established to conduct and critically analyse such proposals, designs and functioning of IT systems.

This team must be empowered to call into question various development and operations projects and procedures of PRAL and other third-party IT vendors.

The IT-IS audit section can have matrix structure to repose additional responsibilities with IRS-Engineering degree holders to conduct snap IT-Access-audit, in-camera-visit premises, call/fetch trace reports and look into complaints in respective RTOs/ LTOs etc.

The Tax Asaan application must contain invoice generation mechanism, in case where the Tier-I retailers deny authentic POS invoice. The retailer may take the smart phone to punch the invoice with their login-password. Also the complaint register mechanism is non-consequential for the user of the application which should be made worthwhile for the end-user.

The hotline for general public, is not known and not written on POS Invoices which makes it impossible to report violation and get feedback with remedial measure. The designated ADC/DCs at the moment do not respond to any complaints. Network Operations Center (NOC) with Northbound Interfacing (NBIs) must be placed in each RTO which must have escalation system to FBR Headquarters, the report added.

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