ISLAMABAD: Intensifying the process of revamping the taxation system of the country, the government during the past three years has taken numerous steps to make it taxpayer-friendly and effective, which in return has helped growth in revenue collection.
According to the Three Years Performance Report released here Thursday, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has been striving to bring ease for the taxpayers
to make them tax compliant and had targeted all policies at providing conducive environment for the business community to thrive without constraints of unnecessary burden of taxes.
According to the report, the objective of reforms is to increase FBRs autonomy by reducing the external influence to effectively ensure managing FBR’s performance; champion the shift towards direct taxation as the primary source of tax revenue as opposed to indirect taxes and incentivize businesses to become a part of the formal economy, thus adding larger sources of tax income to the national exchequer.
It also envisages to simplify tax assessment rules for corporations and small businesses, integrate tax registration with associated processes to reduce the cost of paying taxes, improve audits by establishing Risk Engines and Smart Algorithms to identify potential taxpayers for audit; publish names of non-compliant taxpayers and strongly pursue large tax evaders; and crackdown on corrupt practices that promote tax evasion.
According to report, FBR had performed exceptionally well by achieving the revenue target for the last financial year 2020-21.
The institutional reforms initiated by the present government have started showing results as FBR has collected net revenue of Rs. 4, 732 billion during July 2020 to June 2021 period, which has exceeded the target of Rs. 4, 691 billion by Rs. 41 billion.
This represents a growth of about 18% over the collection of Rs. 3, 997 billion during the same period in the Financial Year 2019-20.
The gross collections increased from Rs. 4, 132 billion during this period in Financial Year 2019-20 to Rs. 4, 983 billion in outgoing Financial Year 2020-21 showing an increase of 21 %.
FBR disbursed refunds of Rs. 251 billion in the outgoing Financial Year 2020-21
compared to Rs. 135 billion in the Financial Year 2019-20, showing an increase of 86%.
Income tax returns for Tax Year-2020 have reached 3.01 million as on June30, 2021 compared to 2.67 million in Tax Year 2019, showing an increase of 12.5 %. The tax deposited with returns in Tax Year 2020 was Rs. 57 billion compared to only Rs. 34 billion in Tax Year-2019 showing an increase of 50%.
Around 11, 100 Point of Sale (POS) terminals have been integrated with real time reporting system of FBR till June 30, 2021.
Pakistan Customs has collected Rs. 742 billion under the head of customs duty in
Financial Year 2020-21 against Rs. 626 billion collected last year showing growth of 18.5 %.
During July 2020 to June 2021, smuggled goods worth Rs. 57.7 billion have been seized as compared to Rs. 36 billion in July 2019 to June 2020 thus showing an increase of 58%.
Directorate General of Intelligence & Investigation-IR showed commendable performance during July 2020 to June 2021.
During this period, Directorate General forwarded 1, 608 Investigation Reports and Red Alerts to the field formations involving revenue amounting to Rs. 244 billion and filed 71 complaints under Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010 where more than Rs. 62 billion were involved. The Directorate General also seized 8, 754 cartons containing 87, 540, 000 cigarette sticks during the period of July 2020 to June 2021.
FBR has uploaded the Return Forms for Tax Year-2020 on 1st July, 2021 in the beginning of Financial Year which is a great achievement.
The process of issuance of manual Income Tax Refunds has been automated through establishment of (CITRO) which allows from verification of claims to transfer of amount in taxpayer’s bank account without interference of Tax machinery. Prior to creation of CITRO whole process of issuance of refunds was done manually.
A new system – FASTER-Plus an end-to-end automated processing and payment
system without human intervention to ensure the transparency is now in place.
All the sales tax refunds are now directly paid in the IBAN of the respective refund claimants within 72 hours and the claimants can view the status of their refund claims on dash board of the web portal and on their registered mobiles through SMS Service.