LAHORE: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has developed a single sales tax portal to facilitate taxpayers and ensure ease of doing business (EoDB), which is the outcome of various rounds of negotiations between FBR and provincial revenue authorities.
FBR has already offered this portal to provincial revenue authorities in order to facilitate taxpayers through one-link facility. The portal is in the final stages of testing and is likely to be launched by the last week of October, the federal tax agency announced on Thursday.
It is pertinent to mention that till now, sales tax registered persons had to file their monthly returns separately to every tax jurisdiction where they conducted business, such as FBR, Sindh Revenue Board (SRA), Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA) and Balochistan Revenue Authority (BRA).
Some of the taxpayers had to file returns with revenue authorities of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJ&K) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB). This was a cumbersome task, which often led to complications and disputes over jurisdiction.
The single sales tax portal will also help in simplification of the tax procedures. It will enable the taxpayers to save time and effort, and reduce their compliance costs. By minimising data entry, it also addresses the issues of data and calculation errors. The system will automatically apportion input tax adjustment as well as tax payments across the sales tax authorities.
Through this system, officers of all revenue authorities will be able to make better informed decisions about matters related to sales tax, the FBR said on a statement, adding that the new system is a milestone towards taxpayers’ facilitation and a big leap towards harmonisation of taxes between the federal government and provinces.
