EVERY Pakistani agrees with the need for developing an interface that helps connect the government and taxpayers with the FBR’s tax-filing inventory without going through the complex tax-filing system. Having such a facility would result in tax filer accretion.

I want to highlight an important issue that discourages the salaried class from filing returns --the excess of tax is never reimbursed by the Federal Bureau of Revenue to a tax-return filer.

The salaried class tax — particularly for government servants — is calculated on the basis of annual salary and deducted in installments over the year. It is only in the last three months of a fiscal year that a tax adjustment is made by producing relevant documents.

Thus if a salaried class tax payer buys a 1300cc car in the last months of a fiscal year,the Rs 30,000 tax he paid to buy the car should be reimbursed if his only source of income is salary.

However, this amount in the last few months cannot be adjusted as most of his tax stands deducted. The only option is to claim a refund by filing a request with the FBR. It is distressing that the FBR has never reimbursed the excess amount paid as tax.

Omar Rashid

Quetta

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2017