KARACHI: The country’s apex tax bar association has urged the FBR to outsource its information technology system as the current one provided by the Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) is failing to cater to taxpayers’ needs.
The Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) stated that e-filing of tax returns, getting sales tax registration and refund including cross-matching of customs, sales tax and income tax data are very cumbersome under PRAL’s system.
Above all, the present system cannot easily detect fraudulent sales tax refunds, the association said.
The PTBA said that 70 per cent of the current problems faced by taxpayers and business community at operational level are directly related to PRAL’s ‘non-dynamic software”.
It added that the present system is not user-friendly and time consuming. It takes on an average two to three months to get sales tax registration, while change in profile of registered taxpayers also takes a lot of time.
The PTBA believes that outsourcing the system on the basis of build, operate and transfer (BOT) can solve these problems. It fears that the number of registered would remain below 100,000 in the coming years if the current situation persists.
Tax consultants and taxpayers, too, regularly face difficulties in getting their issues resolved from PRAL, it said.
The bar also stressed upon the need for setting up FBR-cum-PRAL regional hubs so that taxpayers could get their issues resolved within three to four days.
Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2014
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