ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry in collaboration with SBP’s Banking Services Corporation organized an awareness seminar on online payment of taxes and duties. Sheikh Amir Waheed President, M. Naveed Malik Senior Vice President, Nisar Mirza Vice President ICCI and local business community were present at the occasion. Muhammad Aftab Alam, Chief Manager SBP Banking Services Corporation, Ms. Zohra Hanif Mab Deputy Chief Manager SBPBSC Islamabad, Syed Nabeel Hassan Deputy Director SBPBSC Head Office Karachi and Ms. Saleha Zakir Shah Deputy Collector Customs Islamabad gave detailed presentation on the online payment of taxes and duties.
Addressing the business community, Muhammad Aftab Alam, Chief Manager SBP Banking Service Corporation said that to develop a modern and robust payment systems and to improve efficiency, security, costs and access of payments and settlements infrastructure, SBP under Vision2020 has visualized strategic and tactical goals related to digital banking. He said that the government through Pakistan Customs has signed agreements with World Customs Organization (WCO) and WTO aimed at trade facilitation and introduction of online payment system for collection of duties and taxes. He said that the online tax collection system would provide multiple benefits to the taxpayers as it would facilitate them in payment of taxes/duties from anywhere without visiting bank branches. It would reduce the cost of clearance process, save time of taxpayers and enhance the available options for them as previously taxes/customs could only be paid through NBP/SBP. He said that due to the convenience and ease of use, this system has removed dependency of taxpayers on middleman such as custom agents for the purpose of paying tax/customs.
Speaking at the occasion, Sheikh Amir Waheed, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that the prevailing complicated taxation system was not instrumental in enhancing tax revenue and urged that government should focus on developing a simplified and easy tax system that should encourage tax compliance. He said that industry was the major contributor in tax revenue and stressed that government should develop a fair tax system that should collect tax from every sector of the economy according to its tax paying ability. He said that instead of spending on non-developmental activities, government should spend tax money on health, education, public welfare that would help in promoting tax culture in the country. He hoped that introducing online tax collection facility would help in improving tax revenue as it would reduce the interaction between taxpayers and tax collectors and eliminate the element of corruption.
Muhammad Naveed Malik Senior Vice President and Nisar Mirza Vice President ICCI also spoke at the occasion and assured of their full support in creating more awareness on online tax collection so that business community could take maximum benefit from it for tax payment.
