ISLAMABAD: Shaukat Tarin, Advisor to PM on Finance and Revenue has launched the formulation of Inland Revenue Code in a bid to harmonise all inland taxation laws and maximise facilitation of taxpayers.

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will enforce a new harmonised and simplified Inland Revenue Code from July 1, 2022, combining Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, Sales Tax Act, 1990, Federal Excise, 2005, and Islamabad Capital Territory (Sales Tax on Services) Ordinance, 2001.

According to an announcement of the FBR here on Friday, in a watershed development and to press his vision into practice, it promises to ensure ease of doing business by removing multiplicity of taxing statutes and a plethora of rules and regulations devised to operationalise them.

FBR decides to draft ‘Inland Revenue Codes’

The FBR, on domestic side, implements and enforces four major tax laws i.e. the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, the Sales Tax Act, 1990, the Federal Excise, 2005, and the Islamabad Capital Territory (Sales Tax on Services) Ordinance, 2001.

These four tax statutes are then supported by equal number of rules compiled in voluminous books comprising the Income Tax Rules, 2002, the Sales Tax Rules, 2006, the Federal Excise Rules, 2005, and the Islamabad Capital Territory (Sales Tax on Services) Rules, 2001.

Resultantly, a taxpayer has to consult practically eight law books in order to engage with the tax system and pay off his/her tax liability.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021