In a bid to facilitate the taxpayers, a Centralized Income Tax Refund Office (CITRO) has been established at the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

CITRO will facilitate taxpayers by releasing income tax refund payments directly into their bank accounts in an expeditious and transparent manner. This would work in an end-to-end automated manner.

Member IR (Operations) inaugurated the launch of CITRO by processing the 1st batch of Income Tax refund claims for payment through a dedicated VPN tunnel established between FBR and State Bank of Pakistan.

As per FBR, this system would eliminate human interaction between tax authority and taxpayers as well as ensure quick relief to the business community.

FBR is in process of enhancing this automation process to the next level by creating linkages between all federal and provincial departments as well as large numbers of withholders so that verification and processing of refund claims can also be made in a machine-enabled environment.

As per details, the treasury officer in CITRO and the co-signatory designated by the board in this regard shall issue the cheque or a promissory note to the FBR Refund Settlement Company Limited, as the case may be, for the sanctioned amount as mentioned in the refund order or online transfer.

The CITRO shall also prepare a statement of payment advice for the concerned bank on a daily basis, for direct transfer to the taxpayer under intimation to the CITRO, the concerned commissioner as well as the taxpayer.

The in-charge of the CITRO shall reconcile the refund cheques and payment advice issued during the month with the bank scrolls received from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), and record the outcome of such reconciliation in the system.

Where any cheque is returned back by the SBP due to any reason, the treasury officer shall cancel such cheque, if required, and attach such canceled cheque with the respective counterfoil of the cheque-book, the FBR added.