The Federal Board of Revenue would exclude any taxpayer from the Active Taxpayer List (ATL), who would not file monthly sales tax return by the end of calendar month in which the due date of filing falls. The FBR has tightened procedure of the ATL through issuance of the sales Tax General Order (STGO) 16 of 2013 here on Friday.
According to official sources, the consecutive non-filers of sales tax returns would not be able to remain in the ATL in future. The procedure has been further tightened for the 'active taxpayers' to remain compliant for filing of sales tax returns under the revised parameters. The FBR has notified revised criteria for registered persons in the Active Taxpayer List (ATL) through which if a registered person fails to file the sales tax returns by the end of calendar month in which the due date of filing falls, it would be removed from the ATL. Hence, the he would be declared as non-active taxpayer as a consequence of which his buyers will not be able to get input credit on the purchases made from non-active taxpayers. Prior to this change, the taxpayers were able to miss two returns during last six tax periods to remain in the ATL. This new control notified by the FBR ensures better compliance in timely filing of sales tax returns by the registered persons. For more than a year, FBR had issued a notification through which the non-compliant taxpayers of income tax returns and income tax withholding statements were also required to be included in the ATL which is not yet implemented.
Experts said that if FBR implements the relevant notification in its true spirit the a large number income tax return non-filers and non-filers of income tax withholding statements would automatically become compliant taxpayers. Following is the text of the notification issued here on Friday: The Federal Board of Revenue is pleased to direct that in its Sales Tax General Order No 34/2010dated 16.9.2010, the following amendments shall be made, namely:-
In para 2,
In clause (b), Sub-clause (ii) shall be substituted, namely: Who fails to file the return under section 26 or 27 of the Sales Tax Act, 1990 by the end of the calendar month in which the due date falls."; Sub-clause (iii) shall be omitted; In sub-clause (iv), After the word "return" the words "or statement" shall be inserted; and After the number "114", the word and number "or 115, as the case may be" shall be inserted;
In sub-clause (v), the word "monthly" shall be omitted and for the words "for two consecutive quarter" the words "by the end of the calendar month in which the due date falls" shall be substituted; In clause (d), in sub-clause (i), for the words "invoice summary statement" the words "invoice(s)" shall be substituted.
In para 3, (a) In clause (ii), In sub-clause (b), the words "under section 26 of the Act for two consecutive tax periods" shall be omitted; In sub-clause (d), the after the words "return(s)" the words "or statement(s)" and after the number "114" the word and number "or 115" shall be inserted;
In sub-clause (e), the word "monthly" and "for two consecutive quarters" shall be omitted and after the word "withholding" the word "tax" shall be inserted. In para 4, after clause (ii), the following new clause shall be added, namely: "(iii) the registered person files the return and/ or statement along with payment of any dues required under the Act or Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 and the Rules or notifications made thereunder, if he was declared non-active for the reason of non-filing of any return and/ or statement," it added.