LAHORE: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has proposed setting up of a Centralized Income Tax Refund Office (CITRO) under the FBR for centralized payment of refunds.

The payment of refunds would start from such date as the Board may specify, said a draft of amendments in the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. A copy of the notification is available with Business Recorder.

Draft rules have been shared with stakeholders to seek objections before finalization the same. According to the draft rules, the Commissioner, after completing all codal formalities, would pass an order and transmit the order to CITRO. The same would be reflected in CITRO in real time.

The CITRO would generate electronic advice of approved amount for onwards submission to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) through dedicated VPN tunnel (an encrypted link between your computer or mobile device and an outside network) established between FBR and SBP.

The SBP would credit amount directly to the account of taxpayer and confirm the transfer of amounts to the taxpayers account or vice versa electronically to CITRO, the draft rules added.

It has further been proposed that the CITRO would reconcile the payments issued as per instructions during the month with the electronic scrolls received from the SBP and record the outcome of such reconciliation in the system.

Where any payment instruction is returned back by the SBP due to any reason, the CITRO would transmit the same to the concerned Commissioner for correction in payment instruction. The FBR would ensure that complete data of refunds issued is made available to the concerned Commissioner electronically.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021