ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has directed all chief commissioners (Inland Revenue) to complete the sales tax refund process by April 20th.
“The sales tax refund process was to be completed by the end of last week, but it still remains inconclusive,” said FBR in a letter to the field formations.
It further stated that on order to ensure the process is completed by the end of this week, no processing officer shall be allowed any leave until this process is completed.
“In view of the COVID-19 Relief Package implementation, this exercise has to be completed before April 20, 2020, even if extended working hours are required (observance of Saturday and Sunday as working days),” the letter stated.
In a separate statement on Tuesday, the tax department revealed that it has so far released Rs51.5 billion refunds through its Fully Automated Sales Tax E-Refund System (FASTER).
According to FBR, Rs64.5 billion worth of refunds were claimed since July 2019 through the new system, of which refund cases of Rs57 billion were processed.
Out of the total processed cases, refund payments of Rs51.5 billion have been made to the exporters and businessmen. The remaining unpaid refund cases have been withheld due to incomplete data provided by exporters and businessmen.
Moreover, the FBR stated that the department has devised a centralized system of online payment of sales tax, FED and income tax refunds directly in the bank account of the taxpayers.
For this purpose, the tax department has requested the taxpayers to update their IRIS profile.
“In the given ‘bank account details’ area on the system, an ‘IBAN detail row’ is added wherein taxpayers are required to add IBAN numbers of the same bank account whose details are already available in IRIS profile.”
The FBR has advised the taxpayers to do the needful as soon as possible to avail electronic transfer facility.
