- Businessmen urged to open a sub-account or investor account with CDC in order to receive payments through refund bonds
ISLAMABAD: The Central Depository Company has urged the businessmen, who have opted for sales tax refund payments through refund bonds, to urgently open up a sub-account or investor account with the CDC.
“Out of the total 600 sales tax refunds claimants, only 200 businessmen have so far opened their accounts with CDC,” according to a statement issued by the company on Monday.
The government has planned to clear around Rs40 to Rs60 billion worth of refund claims through this scheme and has finalised around 600 refund claimants who can receive the refund payments through bonds.
The company has already facilitated 90 CDC account holders in getting Rs7 billion sales tax refund payments through bonds. This initiative was taken subsequent to the approval of amendments in the Supplementary (Second Amendment) Act, 2019, by the federal government.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has also asked the refund claimants to accounts with CDC and has issued procedures for opening of such accounts.
The issuance of these refund bonds in book entry form through Central Depository System (CDS) will help create ease of doing business for claimants, as the refund bonds will be issued electronically in the system and there will be no paper or certificate issued.
The claimants may just log in to the CDC web system and confirm that their refund bonds have been credited. In addition to this, the financing against refund bonds by the banks will also be very simple and efficient as banks are already using CDC system and providing financing against different type of securities worth millions of rupees on a daily basis.
All the claimants need to do is to go to the bank and mention their CDC account numbers and the bank will retrieve all the information on real time basis from CDC system through CDC pledge functionality and create a charge against these refund bonds with a simple click of a button.
Commenting on this effort, CDC CEO Badiuddin Akber said, “CDC has always been ready to play its part in the progress and development of the country’s economy. We are more than willing to introduce convenience in doing business through digitalization so as to make our economy more business friendly and this initiative is one more step towards it.”
In order to facilitate the claimants, CDC extended full support and established facilitation desks at RTO Faisalabad and Multan in addition to the services extended from its offices in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
In this regard, a workshop was recently organized for the Towel Manufacturers Association of Pakistan at the TMA House, Karachi. CDC is also planning to establish a special facilitation desk for the convenience of businesses at their head office in Karachi.
