Additional identification types allowed for taxpayers

In order to facilitate withholding agents in electronic submission of withholding tax statements, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has allowed additional identification types for the taxpayers which were earlier restricted to the National Tax Numbers (NTNs) and computerised national identity card numbers (CNICs).
It is learnt here on Thursday that now the new types of identification of taxpayers have been allowed including Free Tax Numbers (FTNs), central depository company (CDC) number, bank account number, telephone/mobile number, passport number etc. These identification types have been allowed in addition to the NTN/CNIC in the withholding tax statements under special situations.
Sources said that a number of withholding agents were not able to file their withholding tax statements electronically due to non-availability of CNIC/NTN of the taxpayers especially in cases of dividend payment, profit on debt, non-resident persons etc. Now, with the additional identification allowed by the FBR, the withholding agents would be able to timely file their statements and discharge their tax liability. It is a major step of the FBR to facilitate the withholding agents for proper filing of statements. Due to additional identification numbers, the taxpayers have been facilitated to ensure compliance.
Sources said that the agents are liable to file withholding tax statements under section 165 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001. The withholding tax statements can be prepared and submitted in any of the following modes ie Online Data Entry, Excel Based File attachment and . Mixture of Online and Excel based. In case of online data entry, the checks and performed in live mode and associated messages are displayed accordingly. However, for preparing data of withholding tax statements in Excel format, the data should be provided in accordance with the FBR's instructions.
The data of withholding tax statements included taxpayer's ID type; taxpayer's NTN/FTN; taxpayer's CNIC; passport number; taxpayer's name; taxpayer's address; payment nature; payment section code; payment date; payment amount; tax rate; tax amount; is tax deducted; tax deposited amount; deposit date; CPR number; provision of law; exemption certificate number; certificate date and certificate authority.