SRB making efforts to facilitate taxpayers: Khalid

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KARACHI
Sindh Revenue Board Chairman Khalid Mehmood has said that SRB has been making cautious efforts to facilitate the taxpayers and resolve their issues as per their aspiration.
Speaking at a meeting during his visit to the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI), the chairman SRB said that the issuance of double notices and other issues are taken up regularly with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and usually resolved through deliberations. “Some progress has taken place in this regard while some issues are still pending and we are hoping that these will also be settled soon”, he added, according to a statement issued by Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on Friday.
He said that sincere efforts were made to resolve the indenters issue whose tax was reduced from 13 percent to 3 percent yet, many indenters are still reluctant to pay tax and have gone into litigation. “If they (indenters) have any other feasible option, it can be shared with SRB and we will take it into consideration”, he assured.
He said that point of sale measures are being taken to capture sales of restaurants, beauty parlours and other outlets where a large number of cash transactions are taking place. “In this regard, we will be requiring your cooperation as it will be a substantive move”, he added.
The chairman SRB said, “Instead of being a typically strict tax collecting authority, we try our best to make SRB a taxpayers’ friendly institution and we have succeeded in attaining this objective to a certain extent. Even in matters in which there were differences between the SRB and the business community, we usually acted leniently in terms of enforcement and the Board has been overall enjoying good relations with the business community of Karachi.”
“Any unwarranted notice received by members of the business community can be brought to SRB high-ups’ notice who are always available to listen to and amicably resolve the issues”, he added.
Chairman BMG Zubair Motiwala, while congratulating SRB chairman on achieving record tax collection of Rs128 billion, stated that there is a huge potential for further growth as SRB has created an enabling and cordial environment in which the taxpayers are being facilitated as much as possible which was a very nice approach.
He stressed that out of a total revenue of Rs128 billion, Karachi must be contributing somewhere around Rs110 billion and out of this huge contribution, the Sindh government should look into the possibility of spending half of the amount on development of Karachi.
He further pointed out that the Worker Welfare Fund (WWF), which is either being submitted to SRB or FBR, is a serious issue that stands unresolved to date. Many taxpayers, who submit it to FBR, adjust WWF in Income Tax Returns but those taxpayers, who submit it to SRB, cannot carry out adjustment in IT returns. Hence, the SRB and FBR will have to sit together to deal with this issue as it puts the business community in a confusing situation, he added.
He further stated that sales tax on exports is not being charged anywhere around the world hence it should not be charged here as well because all the services including shipping lines are being availed for exports.