The Federal Board of Revenue has made it a herculean task for filing the sales tax and federal excise returns due to whimsical procedures, which will also hinder the process of tax collection across the country. President Lahore Tax Bar Association (LTBA) Iftikhar Shabbir Sayed said this during a press conference at the Lahore Press Club on Monday.
He was accompanied by Vice President of the Bar Shafiq-ur-Rafique, General Secretary Muhammad Noman Yahya, Nisar Ahmad Sekhu advocate, ex-president Lahore Tax Bar Shafqat Mehmood Chohan and many others.
President Sialkot Tax Bar Association Tahir Anees, Ch Naeem Aziz President Sargodha Tax Bar Association, Arif Latif, Senior Vice President Pakistan Tax Bar Association Lahore, Nisar A Sheikh, Vice President Pakistan Tax Bar Association, Gujranwala, were also present. While addressing the press conference, Iftikhar Shabbir said the new sales tax returns launched by the FBR comprising of 11 pages included many irrelevant annexures.
CNIC was being made obligatory in case of all kind of sales to unregistered individuals, which was a drastic step, he said, adding it was not possible to obtain the National Identity Card from every person. Secondly, he said it was a hectic process to enter each and every invoice in case of unregistered persons. The FBR portal, on which the returns were launched, was also not properly working as there were too many system errors in it, the president complained.
The FBR had given the contract of web portal to the Pral and the Pral management was on a mission to destroy the Pakistan economy by designing such a return, he added.
Pakistan’s economy is already on the verge of destruction due to inflation, energy crisis and the current procedure of tax collection would prove to be a final blow against the dwindling economy of the country. The hectic procedure for filing the sales returns was making the process of tax collection a Herculean task, he further commented. It was not only time consuming but also irrelevant as the data required for filing the returns was superfluous. He suggested the FBR to make the process easier instead of making it complex one. The president threatened to boycott the filing of sales returns across the country, if no step was taken by the FBR immediately in addressing their concerns. Many of the tax bars across the country had already shown their concerns over the said procedure but the FBR had turned a deaf ear to their reservations, he added.
Tax Bar Association expresses dismay at FBR for tax collection
