New ST return form hampering taxpayers

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is likely to remain far behind from its quarterly revenue target as the newly introduced sales tax return is hampering taxpayers in submitting their monthly sales tax returns, Business Recorder learnt on Tuesday.
According to sources, the taxpayers are facing immense difficulties in e-filing monthly sales tax returns because of processing issues of FBR E-portal. They said that although the system is uploading the data files of the taxpayers, the same were neither deleted nor amended, despite various attempts to do so.
They said the figures of sales and accumulated tax are also not being displayed while submitting monthly sales tax returns, creating immense difficulties for taxpayers. They said that when the taxpayers try to file sales data manually, the system did not accept more than a single entry of each party and treated multiple entries of a party as duplicate data.
When contacted, Khushnood A Khan, President of Karachi Sales Tax Bar Association (KSTBA) confirmed that the system designated to e-filing of sales tax monthly returns had caught severe bugs that put the taxpayers into imbroglio. He said the system was not substantiating error messages appeared at the time of verifying return besides it could also not entertain withholding tax deducted at old invoices on the payment of the party.
Furthermore, he said, the system did not accept zero-rated sales tax invoice as the newly introduced sales tax return was treating the same as duplicate record. He urged the concerned authority to intervene in the matter and take positive measure to resolve the issue on priority basis.
Meanwhile, Anwar Kashif Mumtaz, President of Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA), has also suggested recommendations to remove anomalies from the newly sales tax return. He appealed to the FBR to depute its team for practical demonstration of e-filing of new sales tax return in the presence of ground realities and practical challenges being faced by the taxpayer in transmitting the same via FBR E-portal. He also urged to the board for extending the date of e- filing of return till October, 15, 2011 besides permitting the taxpayers to follow old procedure for e-filing of their monthly sales tax returns.