ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: The Central Board of Revenue has decided to carry out e-filing of sales tax returns in two phases as part of the tax administration reforms. In the first phase, sales tax returns will be filed electronically and payment will be made manually, whereas in the second phase, both filing of returns and payment will be done electronically.

This was decided in a meeting of quarterly conference of collectors of sales tax and federal excise headed by CBR Chairman M. Abdullah Yousuf held here on Saturday. Member sales tax Shahid Ahmad gave a detailed presentation on the performance of sales tax collection during the first quarter.

The benefits of e-filing include immediate acknowledgement of submission of returns, round-the-clock availability of the facility for taxpayers, reduction in processing time for the CBR, elimination of data entry errors, cost savings (paperless, reduced storage and retrieval time), user-friendly, highly secured method of data transfer for both the taxpayers and CBR, and modernization of tax payment system.

An official announcement said that the CBR chairman asked the collectors to accelerate the pace of refunds payment and try to overcome this issue as early as possible.

“We seem to be reacting the situation rather than pre-empting the situation,” he said and added: “We need to close this issue once for all whatever is payable, pay it with necessary verification,” the CBR chairman advised the collectors. In this regard he also referred zero-rating of five major industrial sectors.

“In future, we are required to be far more transparent and effective,” he stressed. Mr Yusuf said that sales tax was the leading tax among all federal taxes as far as percentage was concerned and it had, therefore, to play a vital role in meeting the overall revenue collection target of Rs690 billion.

The CBR chairman hoped that the collection of sales tax would be further enhanced in the next quarters if the system was streamlined and leakages were checked effectively.

For full exploitation of the potential exists in the sales tax sector, the chairman said: “We should remove the lacunas and drawbacks in the system.”

He observed that STARR and STREAM systems had not addressed all the issues confronting with this tax. “We need to further improve both of these systems to enhance sales tax collection,” Mr Yusuf remarked.

Stressing upon the need for total automation of sales tax collection system, the CBR chairman asked the collectors to ensure that the reliable data like, the amount brought forward, its age, pending/outstanding amount, etc., are available on the net.

The new e-filing system will greatly help in achieving the desired results in this regard, he feels.