Member Sales Tax, Central Board of Revenue (CBR) Shahid Ahmed has reiterated the resolve that the tax target of Rs 510 billion would be easily attainable.
"During the first three quarters of current fiscal year the board has collected a record tax revenue of Rs 351.73 billion".
He was speaking in a meeting with President, Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) Hussain Ahmed Ozgen and other executives of the chamber, businessmen, exporters and industrialists in chamber's auditorium.
Senior Vice President RCCI Jawed Bhatti, Vice President Fazlur Rehman, Chairman Standing Committee for Sales Tax Najam Rehan also spoke on the occasion.
Shahid Ahmed said that government has fixed Rs 510 billion as target for the current fiscal year, out of which Rs 228 billion will be sales tax.
He assured the business community that the budget for next fiscal year would be more people friendly, particularly there would be positive change regarding the sales tax and other taxes.
CBR is making efforts to make the procedures easy and resolve all problems of the taxpayers in order to earn more revenue for the country, he added.
"We have collected record revenue of Rs 351.73 billion during first three quarters of the current fiscal year", he said and added that the target of Rs 510 billion is now easy to attain.
He stressed the need of close interaction between the business community and the CBR in order to make the procedures easy and taxpayers-friendly.
"We are busy in consultation with different organisations of businessmen including FPCCI, APTMA etc, to form new rules", he added.
Responding to the proposals presented by the RCCI standing committee, member sales tax said that the proposals of reducing the rate of sales tax from 15 percent to 10 percent, would be considered in the upcoming budget and if it was possible, government would show no hesitation in reducing it.
He said that the government would simplify the sales tax procedure in the next fiscal year budget 2004-05 in order to provide maximum facilitation to the taxpayers.
Shahid Ahmed said that the present government is trying its level best to provide maximum facilities to the taxpayers besides improving the figure of taxpayers.
Member sales tax further said that CBR is working on the project to put all programmes of the board including audit, tax collection, taxpayers' data and information on Information Technology in order to facilitate the taxpayers in a way to give them easy access to the required information.
He stressed the business community to make interaction and close liaison with the tax department and give feed back of government polices.
Earlier, expressing his views Hussain Ahmed Ozgen President RCCI said that the private sector was making all efforts to improve in order to meet the global challenges. But for this, the government has to provide encouraging environment for business in the country.
He said that the main focus of the government should be to collect revenue for the government of Pakistan and make the tax regime fair.
He noted that keep in view the low per capita income level the general sales tax rate of 15 percent is very high. It must be reduced to 10 percent.
Najam Rehan Chairman RCCI standing committee on sales tax suggested that simplified procedure should be notified. Moreover, one window operation for the registration was also proposed.
A standardised procedure for deregistration should also be adopted, he said.
He said that sales tax registration forms and monthly returns should be printed, distributed and accepted in Urdu, as well.
This will make things easy for taxpayers, who are unable to read or write English.
He demanded that extra National Bank branches should be opened to submit the sales tax returns.
Najam Rehan said that awareness regarding tax system particularly sales tax must be created.
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