The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will launch a Single Sales Tax Portal in the ongoing month, November 2021, to facilitate taxpayers and ensure ease of doing business through automation, digitization, and minimization of human interaction with taxpayers. Prime Minister Imran Khan is likely to launch the initiative.
According to a handout issued by FBR, the decision has been made after thorough discussions with the provincial revenue authorities of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan, as well as Azad Jammu & Kashmir.
This facility will enable taxpayers to file single monthly Sales Tax returns instead of multiple returns (six in the past) on different portals. It will significantly reduce the time and cost of compliance, and thus help achieve maximum efficiency.
The handout reveals that the system will be intelligent enough to sift and collect revenues from a single taxpayer and distribute the same among multiple revenue agencies.
This unique project will also help resolve the long outstanding issues of input tax adjustment among relevant stakeholders. With the proposed launch of the Single Sales Tax Portal, the existing cumbersome and tedious processes will be replaced with an efficient & automated system of tax adjustments, with minimum human involvement.
As per the handout, the portal will also be beneficial for tax collectors in having a ‘360-degree view’ of taxpayers’ business activities across the country in order to maximize revenue potential and tax compliance. By all standards, this is a giant leap forward in taxpayers’ facilitation and at the same time, a significant step in the harmonization of taxes between federal and provincial governments.
Source: Pro Pakistani