ISLAMABAD (September 26 2003): Tax consultant Maxwell Stamps has asked the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) to ensure timely submission of sales tax returns by the banks.
The tax experts said that the banks were not submitting the sales tax returns to the collectorates on time, which needed to be checked as the banks prepare balance-sheet of all the monetary transactions on daily basis.
The assistant collectors should ensure that batches of sales tax returns were timely submitted by the banks and in case of delay the tax officials should take up the matter with the concerned bank.
The consultant said that the CBR did not provide taxpayers with the copies of the return forms and old copies continue to be used after change in layout. This creates processing problems for the concerned authorities.
Under the tax reform strategy, the CBR will take up centralisation of production and distribution procedure pertaining to tax return forms to ensure 'in time' availability to all the taxpayers.
To deal with non-filers, an amendment in the law will be made to allow presumptive assessments through an automated process, for immediate enforcement after expiry of returns submission deadline.
The assessment will be based on the taxpayer's revenue history, including the relevant information obtained from the audit reports.
The taxpayer's legal rights will not be violated as the assessment can be cancelled at any time by the taxpayer submitting the tax return and payment for the period in question.
Furthermore, to ensure that the errors in the information submitted on the tax returns are kept to a minimum, the CBR will pre-print the basic information such as, taxpayer name, address, registration number and the filing period on the tax return and send it to the taxpayer before the due date for each filing period.
They also recommended that there should be an Assessment and Processing Division, equipped with the list of newly registered taxpayers.
The staff would telephone taxpayers two or three days prior to the 15th of each month to remind them for return submission.
