The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the Auditor General for Pakistan Revenues (AGPR) have joined hands to check tax evasion of billions of rupees by monitoring the sale and purchase activities of government vendors.
“The FBR, in collaboration with the AGPR has put a mechanism in place to monitor and access complete data of sale and purchase of government vendors through the Monitoring and Invoice Verification System in order to check almost 80 per cent of the sales tax evasion by the vendors,” a senior official of the board said.
As per the common practice, the government vendors are filing only one-fifth of the sales tax on Sales Tax Return Number (STRN) with the Accountant General (AG)’s Office on their own while evading 80 per cent government tax due to non-availability of the STRN verification facility at the AGP.
“The Sales Tax Real-time Invoice Verification Strive System has been put in place from July 1, to check leakages in the tax system and improve over-all revenue collections,” said Member Sales Tax Dr Irshad.
He said that the purpose is to check the malpractice that has been inflicting huge losses to the national exchequer in terms of tax evasion, adding that with this system, the cross verification of the STRN of all the vendors working with the government will be verified.
The FBR will also involve District Controller Accounts for properly accessing the data of the government vendors and contractors and ask them for help in order to recover huge amounts evaded in terms of the sales tax.
However, he said that this sales tax system will not be implemented in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan areas. “We expect that with the help of this system, billions of rupees will be collected in revenue by checking and removing the loopholes and leakages,” he added.
The FBR Sales Tax member said that similar systems have been developed to stop sales tax evasion in the sale and purchase of goods and electricity distribution companies (Discos) all across the country.
For the future, two more software programmes are being developed to introduce the same facility in the real-estate business and motor registration system. He said that the FBR has taken many initiatives to revamp the existing sales tax system to facilitate taxpayers and also improve revenue collection system by making it taxpayer-friendly, transparent and disciplined, adding that a renaissance is taking place which will transform the overall system.