ISLAMABAD, Jan 29: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has notified a newly automated system - Sales Tax Risk Evaluation and Management System (STREAMS) - for the processing and sanction of sales tax refunds as part of reforms of tax administration.

A sales tax official told Dawn on Saturday that all collectors of sales tax had been directed to sanction the refund claims processed through STREAMS in accordance with the existing refund rules and clear the backlog.

Elaborating the main features of the new system, the official said that it would maintain taxpayer profiles, based on multi-tax data of the regular claimants and suppliers. The submission of the soft copy in the system would result in the determination of the risk assessment of the claim.

Accordingly, the claim would go either into a green channel - resulting in immediate payment or into a yellow channel - resulting in further scrutiny or into a red channel - suspending the payment and initiation of audit by the audit/investigation function.

According to the official, the STREAMS package also has provision of issuing/releasing the refund payment order (RPO).

The new risk based system would revolve around the risk profiling of taxpayers, which would help in releasing refund to law abiding exporters immediately and easily.