KARACHI: In order to ensure transparency in tax system, the tax lawyers have suggested the revenue authority to publish quarterly list of the taxpayers, whose sales tax refunds were issued.
During a Karachi Tax Bar Association’s (KTBA) pre-budget seminar, Asif Haroon of A F Ferguson and Co proposed that it will be right step towards transparency and will act as a deterrent to corrupt people.
“Sometimes refunds were issued on fake and flying invoices, which caused the genuine taxpayers to suffer because of the delaying tactics employed by the tax department,” Haroon argued. He proposed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to reduce sales tax rate of 17 percent along with value addition tax (VAT) rate of 3 percent on commercial imports. “Sales tax rate should be brought down to a single digit; however, we propose a sales tax rate of 10 percent, as a first step,” he said.
Giving the rationale of sales tax rate reduction proposal, Haroon said it would encourage the unregistered persons to get registered, resulting in the expansion of tax base, documentation of economy, and discouragement of under-invoicing, corruption, and smuggling.
