ISLAMABAD: FBR TIMES, In order to curb refunds fraud worth billions of rupees through the registration of fake units, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is going to replace its existing sales tax registration system with one that employs the latest Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will launch this new system before going the second round of review talks with the IMF scheduled to be held in Dubai from February 1, 2014. The new system with GPS would allow the revenue body to monitor business processes and the premises of manufacturing units. The existing sales tax registration system is lengthy, laborious, discretionary and also easy to use for corruption purposes. According to sources, the registration application shuffled between the Pakistan Revenue Authority Limited and central and local registration offices and often took months to settle. The verification of business processes is a lengthy process and the applicant provides with the “means” and transport for a visit to their business processes, the official source added. Even the registration application suffers from data errors. FBR chairman took notice of this situation and decided to abandon the faulty system altogether and replace it with an automated one. The new system, reportedly the first of its kind in the region, will be driven by GPS will also employ the Harmonized System (HS), an internationally standardised system of names and numbers for classifying traded products and commodities. The HS system will also facilitate input tax credit on irrelevant raw material. Further, the source said, applicants would not have to visit a local office to process their application. Instead, the applicant could access the Geographic Information System (GIS) from FBR’s e-portal on their mobile phones and the rest can process through SMS messages. However, alternative arrangements have also been made for officials at local tax offices, who will be provided with android-enabled mobile phones to visit business premises and transmit images back to FBR’s e-portal. The system will then tally the location of the business premises with the applicant’s address, consumer number and electricity, gas and telephone bills. The computerised system has been designed in a way that it could issue the registration certificate automatically if everything checks out with no local tax official involved in the process. Further, all chambers will be given hands-on training and the system will be adjusted or upgraded in accordance with their advice.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:45:00 +0000
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