ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) system of electronic filing of sales tax and federal excise returns has almost come to a halt and refused to go from 'verification mode' to next stage of return submission through electronic system.
Talking to Business Recorder here on Saturday, Advocate and tax expert Arshad Shehzad said that FBR system is not verifying the basic sales tax and federal excise information, and the filers of sales tax and federal excise returns are in a fix. After entering basic information in the electronic return filing, nobody can move from verification mode to subsequent submission mode of return filing due to technical error.
Taxpayers are facing serious problems in electronic filing of sales tax and federal excise returns as the concerned authorities of Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) have totally failed in address the technical/systemic issues during filing of returns. The tax expert said that the FBR's exercise for documentation would suffer serious setback following blockage in filing of sales tax and federal excise returns. Astonishingly, the PRAL Helpline in not properly responding to queries of taxpayers, and the system has raised objections on return verification.
In spite of lapse thrice last date for filing of sales tax return has been extended for the month of July 2011, a large number of sales tax payers remained non-filer. The complication over filing of sales tax return for the tax period July 2011 has not yet been sorted out by the regulator. The taxpayers are facing a number of minor technical and systematic problems in finalising their sales tax returns.
He said that they have received feedback/complaints on various accounts, which were e-mailed individually or personally to e-support but failed to get any positive clarification / assistance from them. The tax expert pointed out multiple issues such as problems in verification of computerised payment receipt (CPR) number, adjustment of accumulative effect of input tax on capital goods pertaining to preceding tax period, data feeding of individual unregistered purchase/sales and impact of sales tax withholding tax were not properly accounted for in sales tax return.
Arshad Shehzad said he was also surprised over looming uncertainty upon jurisdictional issue of sales tax payment on services. The matter was under dispute between federal and provincial government where both of them are issuing constant instruction to dispose tax liability which has caused confusion among taxpayers that what course of action they should follow?
The tax expert said that on their e-mail on September 8, 2010, the two problems addition for exclusion of exporters from minimum payment and provision for input declaration under special procedure was modified in sales tax return and now these two issues have been successfully resolved.
He opined that regulator should extend date of filing of sales tax return for both July and August till September 30, 2011, to modify the existing bugs in the electronic return filing system and to ensure smooth and hassle-free filing of sales tax return. He further pointed out that such abrupt amendments should be avoided in future and only introduced after proper internal scrutiny, feedback from the stakeholders and consultation with trade bodies to avoid afterward trial and test practice. Such practice may shatter confidence of the taxpayer, Arshad Shehzad added.
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