KARACHI, Nov 19: The software developed by the Central Board of Revenue will be placed on the web in January 2006, enabling the stakeholders to know the current status of their refund cases.

This was disclosed by Ghulam Ahmed, collector of Sales Tax, Karachi, in a meeting with the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) here on Saturday. He assured the Aptma members that his department’s prime duty was to expedite the process sales tax refund and make it transparent.

He informed the members that effective from Dec 7, an e-filing would be mandatory for the corporate sector to achieve the objective of speedy handling of refund cases in a transparent way.

On a suggestion of Aptma vice-chairman Mushtaq Ahmed Vohra, the collector agreed to fix every Saturday for the association members in order to facilitate sales tax refund cases.

The collector was informed that a frequent change in staff of the sales tax department and subsequently demanding similar documents caused delays and difficulties in the early finalization of the refund cases.

On an offer by the collector that the department will accept undertaking issued by Aptma on the verification of documents, Mr Vohra said that it would be difficult for the association to provide such undertaking to the sales tax authorities. However, he said Aptma could forward and facilitate the cases of members for refund after necessary verification or examination by the sales tax authorities.