Tax payers to get ''Single Identifier Numbers''

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to allocate ''Single Identifier Numbers'' (SINs) to all taxpayers who are at present using different sales tax registration numbers and National Tax Numbers (NTNs) for carrying out business activities.
Sources told Business Recorder on Saturday that the Board has issued letters to 8442 registered sales taxpayers, whose NTNs are untreatable. The Board has given 15-30 days to the Sales Tax Department for completing this exercise. Once a single identifier number is located, the person registered with the sales tax department would operate under NTN or Computerised National Identity Card Number (CNIC).
Sources said that the exercise of allocating single identifier number to the taxpayers is in final stages for which taxpayers should submit accurate NTNs for future purposes. Gradually, NTNs would replace the sales tax registration numbers in future, they added.
They said that one of the reform objectives is to achieve a single taxpayer identifier for business transactions pertaining to sales tax, customs and income tax. As a policy, it was decided to work on NTN database and remove deficiencies, if any, and once that is achieved, it would gradually replace all other identifiers, including Sales Tax Registration Number (STRN).
No new sales tax registration numbers are issued unless an NTN is provided. New NTNs are consistently being allocated to income tax returns of last three years filled with verifiable CNIC/NTN and 80 percent STRN have been matched with NTN. Non-matched STRN will be de-registered.
Meanwhile, the FBR has also announced that the department is planning to conduct data cleansing exercise, primarily to collect NTN from those sales tax registered persons who have not obtained their NTN, or failed to supply it to the department.
Sales Tax Database shows that there are 8442 sales tax registered persons who do not have NTN. Resultantly, these registered persons will face hardships in filing their sales tax returns during the current financial year (2007-08). The letters are being sent to all such persons asking them to provide their NTNs to Central Registration Office (CRO) for database update.
All registered persons have, therefore, been advised to supply their NTN in Sales Tax database immediately either by using URL ''Sales Tax Registration Status'' on the CBR official website ''www.cbr.gov.pk'' to avoid any problem in returns filing, the FBR added.