ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) has called upon the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to arrange early clearance of all outstanding tax refunds of the business community, as keeping such claims pending would shatter the confidence of the businessmen in the tax machinery and would create more hurdles in improving tax revenue of the country.
Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Muzzamil Hussain Sabri said that tax refund claims of billions of rupees of traders and industrialists were lying pending in the FBR and the tax authority was taking no tangible measures to clear these outstanding claims timely. He said all tax refund claims should be cleared within three months of the filing of a claim.
He said an FBR senior official has recently admitted before the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance that sales tax refunds of around Rs 35-40 billion were pending with the FBR while the fresh claims stood at Rs 65-70 billion. He said that according to the FBR’s own documents, the total amount of refunds in the year 2013-14 piled up to a huge amount of more than Rs 104 billion, showing an increase of around 12 percent as compared to the previous year’s figure.
He said this state of affairs showed that the FBR was not ready to pay what it owed to the business community. Rather it was creating problems for the businessmen for the recovery of outstanding dues ostensibly just to meet the revenue targets of the government, which was highly unjustified.
Muzzamil Sabri said if a taxpayer was found a defaulter, the FBR wasted no time to subject him/her to penalties and attachment of bank accounts, but it was not paying the valid dues of taxpayers, which was totally an unfair approach. He stressed that there should be a level-playing field in this regard and FBR functionaries who failed to release the valid refunds of the businessmen should be held accountable, as accountability would force them to expedite the payment of refunds.
He said that the FBR was created to facilitate the businessmen in tax matters but its current approach was going against this purpose. He emphasised that the FBR should focus on developing a fair taxation system to end all existing distortions and discriminations in tax regime.
He stressed that the FBR should ensure timely release of payment against all valid refund claims that would improve the confidence of taxpayers and contribute positively to increasing the tax revenue of the country.
