November 25, 2007	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 14, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Nov 24: A fast track tax payment and transmission system will be operational from December 1, which will not only overcome procedural pitfalls in tax deposits but also be instrumental in unearthing understatement of income and tax avoidance.

The fast track system, a part of the collection automation project (CAP), in the first phase would be implemented in all 16 branches of State Bank of Pakistan and 510 National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) authorised branches across the country.

Aimed at mitigating the tax deposit-related problems of the taxpayers, the project has been designed in collaboration with SBP and NBP to capture all information on federal taxes deposited in these banks that will be electronically reported to Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on daily bases.

FBR secretary Information Hafeez Mughal said modalities of the system were finalised in a recent meeting held between Chairman FBR Abdullah Yousuf, Governor SBP Dr. Shamshad Akhtar and President NBP S. Ali Raza.

Mr Mughal said major purpose of the CAP project was to fully and accurately record all tax payments and to assign them to the correct taxpayers’ accounts. The project also envisages issuance of computerised payment receipt (CPR) instead of the present manual system of the individual tax challans of the taxpayers.

It is believed that the new system would expand the tax base and would result in development of an accurate and reliable data base on national basis. It would also ensure timely tax credits for taxes withheld under various withholding provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 and expeditious processing of refund claims.