ISLAMABAD (August 15 2004): The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has withdrawn three sales tax instructions issued on registration and de-registration during 2003 and 2004 for reducing unnecessary paper work to make fresh sales tax registration easy.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday that the decision has been taken on an order of Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) who termed CBR's instructions on registration as illegal because registration requirement should be notified through SRO instead of issuance of letter. FTO order in complaint number 441/04 has been implemented by the Board.
In the light of FTO's order, the CBR has issued new Sales Tax Registration, Voluntary Registration and De-registration Rules under SRO 485(I)/2004 in budget (2004-05). In the presence of new registration rules, previous instructions stand null and void.
The CBR has withdrawn Board's letter of STP of August 16, 2003; letter ST, Law and Procedure Section of March 25, 2004 and letter ST, Law and Procedure Section of April 5, 2003.
The fresh applicants would follow the new procedure of registration and de-registration as announced in budget.
Sources said that the centralised sales tax registration system has been properly functioning which would speed up registration process.
In budget 2004-2005, CBR has simplified sales tax registration and deregistration procedure under SRO 485(I)/2004. For this purpose, a centralised automated taxpayers friendly process has became functional from July 1 2004. With this, latest face-less cult in public affairs management through efficient, transparent and self-correcting mechanism shall stand introduced in CBR working.
Any prospective taxpayer can apply on a simple registration form ST-1 to local registration office. The registration forms are available at all facilitation counters of local Registration Offices.
In order to ensure that the applicants can monitor the process, the applications are requested to be sent through mail with acknowledgement due. Similarly, the same procedure shall be followed for deregistration ST-3 and for change of registration ST-2 form.
The local registration office shall transmit filled up applications to the Central Registration Office based in CBR. The previous requirements of furnishing supporting documents have been done away.
The Central Registration having on line access to database of NTN as well as of Nadra shall verify the particulars declared in the application with database. On verification, it shall generate and issue registration certificate to the applicant.
The system has been designed in such a way that it can correct any minor mistakes automatically without bothering the taxpayers.
