Commissioners told to justify deferment of refund claims

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Friday expressed serious displeasure over the deferment of genuine sales tax refund claims of exporters by field formations and directed the chief commissioners to give explainable reasons with evidence to justify deferment of valid claims of the business community.

According to the FBR's instructions to the chief commissioners, the FBR has warned field formations that the wrong deferment of sales tax refund claims will be indicated in the performance evaluation report (PER) of the concerned tax officers.

The FBR's instructions stated that the attention is invited towards board's letter of even number dated 13th April, 2020 on the subject where-in all CCIRs were directed to ensure speedy replication and processing of refund claims without any discrimination.

Certain guidelines/clarifications were also issued to ensure that the process of sanctioning pending refunds remains smooth and transparent. However, realising that the initial step that is replication was not being done at expected pace, the board intervened and got almost all the claims centrally replicated in two days. Needless to mention that the same could have been done at each RTO level, the FBR stated.

It was expected that board's initiative would create some realisation in the chief commissioners and they would understand the need of the hour and have the replicated claims processed expeditiously.

To the contrary, it has been noted that a number of replicated and valid claims have apparently been deferred without any plausible reason. This places a blot on the efficiency and transparency of the whole process and probably justifies the agony of the exporters at large and claimants in general that the claims are unduly delayed, the FBR noted with concern.

The FBR added that the regional tax office (RTO) wise list of claims that were centrally replicated, though they should have been replicated at RTO level, and were held valid by the system, deferred by the RTO are being shared with the field formations.

The chief commissioners are directed to examine the lists and ensure that there should be explainable reasons with evidence to justify deferment. Else all such replicated and valid claims be processed and sanctioned by tomorrow before close of hours, the FBR stated.

The chief commissioners must ensure that the claims that still remain deferred will have to be explained in detail with evidence and undue deferment will be indicated in the performance evaluation report (PER) of the concerned tax officer.

When contacted, a tax expert said that the replication from 'STARR' computer program would not be enough to prove the genuineness of a refund claim.

The RTOs need to follow guidelines given in refund rules, which includes hard copies of documents, invoices, stock statements, copies of instruments showing banking transfers etc. Moreover, the RTOs need to confirm relevancy of goods purchased and export.