ISLAMABAD: The caretaker Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to improve the performance of Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL), IT-arm of the FBR, under the digitization and automation plan for expanding the tax net.
Caretaker Finance Minister on Thursday visited FBR Headquarters and held a detailed meeting with the FBR Chairman Amjad Zubair Tiwana and his team of tax managers on the issue of reforms and restructuring of the FBR.
FBR officials gave a detailed briefing to the caretaker Finance minister on digital tax transformation, Board’s restructuring, reforms and automation.
Shamshad urged to extend tax returns filing deadline
The FBR also shared a comprehensive strategy to deal with the non-filers and documentation of the economy with the help of third party data including provincial databases.
Total returns filed up to 31st Oct,2023 for tax year 2023 were 2.9 Million approximately as against 2.57 million filed during the similar period of previous year showing an increase of 330,000.
It has been further informed that the FBR and the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) have agreed to expand collaboration and exchange data to determine the actual income of existing taxpayers, register new taxpayers, and finalise tax profiles of non-filers.
Sources said that the FBR and Nadra have again started a consultative process for expanding the tax base. The FBR wanted to utilise all kinds of data for expanding the tax net. The idea is to further strengthen data to register non-filers of income tax returns.
The FBR has informed the caretaker Finance Minister that it has started restructuring of Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL).
During the meeting, caretaker Finance Minister raised a question about the performance of the PRAL and how the performance of the PRAL can be improved, sources said.
In pursuance of a consultative meeting held for “Restructuring and Revitalization of PRAL,” it was decided that sub-groups comprising of FBR officers shall be constituted who would share proposals for restructuring and revitalization of PRAL, FBR said.
In this regard, the FBR has issued a notification on the constitution of sub-groups for restructuring and revitalisation of PRAL.
Sources said that the caretaker Finance Minister stressed upon the need for maximum use of technology for documentation of economy through automated solutions for broadening the tax base.
Caretaker Finance Minister desired automated solutions for the IT-related initiatives and digital reforms being introduced in the FBR.
The FBR has informed that the new post of the Member (Digital Initiatives) is supervising digital systems of track and trace, Synchronized Withholding Agents, point of sales (POS) and digital invoicing.
Directorate-General for Digital Invoicing and Analysis and Synchronized Withholding Agents System would integrate the sales tax supply chain and withholding agents, respectively.
The system will link the sales data of manufacturers, dealers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers with the FBR’s system. The monthly sales tax information including payments of sales tax would be available to the FBR under the new system. Due to the online availability of data, the evasion of sales tax would not be possible.
The FBR’s system would itself generate monthly sales tax returns of the said categories of the supply chain, which would be integrated with the Directorate-General for Digital Invoicing and Analysis.
The point of sale system of the FBR would also come under the Member for Digital Invoicing and Analysis. The data of these taxpayers are regularly entered into the FBR’s system and there would be no need for submission of monthly sales tax returns or audits.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023