MULTAN: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is trying its best to facilitate taxpayers with automated modern technology for filing of tax returns without any hurdles. Taxes are the main source of income for any country and and e-filing of income tax returns has promoted tax culture in the country to a great extent.
This was stated by Federal Board of Revenue Member Information Technology Khawaja Adnan Zaheer during a workshop on e-filing of income tax returns held by Multan Tax Bar Association.
The Federal Board of Revenue has launched awareness campaign at larger scale in the country to educate the taxpayers for filing of their tax returns and seminars are also held in the colleges and universities to aware people about filing of their tax returns.
He told that filing of Income tax returns is prime responsibility of every citizen for the betterment of country. Every taxpayer has been given reminder about payments of taxes through recently launched new SMS alerts and e-mail service of Federal Board of Revenue.
Launching of e-mail and SMS service from Federal Board of Revenue is giving productive results and huge numbers of taxpayers are filing their tax returns through this media campaign and it is widening the tax net of country. We are cultivating tax culture in the society through social messages and Public service messages by creating the importance of taxes for country.
The Federal Board of Revenue has signed MOU, s with Google for social media campaign and they are also promoting our taxpayer awareness education by displaying messages on more than 200 websites. Software development of Federal Board of Revenue has been done over the period of 30 years and these systems are not made over the night. Taxpayers should try to take minimum time on logging of e-filing system to give space to other taxpayers for filing of tax returns.
The Federal Board of Revenue is also going to launch new awareness campaign at the time of withdrawal of money from bank ATM debit and credit cards to educate taxpayer.
He said that a massive advertisements campaign from Federal Board of Revenue was also launched in the cinemas of Lahore and Karachi after the national anthem in movies by broadcasting advertisement to remind taxpayer about filing of their tax returns in time.
He expressed that business community and traders have been taken into confidence on the filing of tax returns .He told that Federal Board of Revenue Information Technology wing is working on the new forms of tax returns 2018 and it will be introduced in the March for testing phase and we will properly launched a new tax returns forms from 1st July of fiscal year 2018 after three months of testing .We assured that tax filers will get the tax performa 2018-19 before the start of new fiscal year and we will launched it after the pre-testing after removing it’s any possible flaws. We have also signed a MOU,s with State Bank of Pakistan to facilitate taxpayers and our taxpayer will file their tax returns through any bank from 1st January.
Taxpayers are also facing few local issues regarding filing of tax returns like slow internet speed ,over traffic on the server and the system is also overloaded in the last days of deadline so taxpayers should pay their taxes before deadline of FBR.
He informed that system of sales tax return will be up gradated in the 2018 and sales tax returns will be filed through IRIS software. The Federal Board of Revenue has witnessed boost in tax net by receiving 439,041 tax returns so far and we received almost 219,000 excess tax returns from the corresponding fiscal year due to our effective media campaigns launched in the nationwide. He told that Federal Board of Revenue has shown 100 % growth in the filing of tax returns due to effective awareness drive in countrywide.
The Federal Board of Revenue is working on the up gradation of this e-filing of Income tax which is modified automated system for filing of tax returns and we will eliminated a lot of shortcomings of the previous system to make this tax system perfect and which will make the whole process of filing income tax returns a lot easier for taxpayers.
We are also focusing business community and persuading them to file their tax returns on time after the salaried class for the broadening of tax net in the country.
At the end of seminar question answer session was held from tax lawyers and taxpayers to the Member Information Technology which was also answered. Multan Taxpayer President Shabbir Fakhar ud Din, General Secretary Imran Ghazi, Chief IT Wing Zainul Abdin, Commissioner RTO Multan Asim Ahmad and others have attended the seminar.
