Tax system needs complete overhauling
President PTBA says credit goes to FBR Chairman Tariq Bajwa, Member IT Raana Ahmed for developing IRIS
LAHORE: Newly introduced IRIS system is one excellent efforts put in practice by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) IT section and it will play a vital role in resolving a number of tax related issues. Even so it will take some time to get popular among the taxpayers, members of bars and tax practitioners.
These views were expressed by Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) President Mohsin Nadeem in an exclusive interview with Customs Today.
Nadeem said that initially the taxpayers and lawyers practicing tax are not used to with the IRIS and everyone including FBR IT department, PTBA and local bars are playing their part in making the people good on the new system of filing returns by holding seminars and training workshops.
In answer to a question, the PTBA president said that Pakistani tax systems need a complete overhauling as income tax has become withholding tax.
He explained that FBR is detecting tax on different rate at every income while income tax suggests that at the end of every financial year one would pay taxes on ones’ incomes after the deduction of expenses incurred during the whole financial year.
“This has resulted in further burdening the common people and the sales tax is being repeated many times,” the PTBA president informed, adding that WHT has become the major source of collection of tax revenue for the government as the present system has totally collapsed. He informed that FBR has above 27,000 employees but of no avail.
“We have great potential of revenue collection in our economy and in order to tap this transparency is a must. Pakistan is among one of the top countries where charity is made generously but people avoid paying taxes due to the trust deficit in the tax authorities,” Nadeem highlighted.
“Our traders are ready to pay taxes at whatever rate but they avoid coming to the doorstep of the tax houses,” he went on saying.
However, he hoped that the new officers of FBR are has great potential and they want to do something for the country and they will once become successful in making the tax department a real result oriented organization.
The new IRIS system is one good instance of the fact, he informed, adding that earlier we have to wait for months for registration and now it is mater of a few minutes.
One doesn’t need to go to the FBR officials and simply by inserting required information through IRIS system one can be registered with the FBR, he said, adding, it goes without saying that the credit goes to Chairman FBR Tariq Bajwa and member IT Rana Ahmed.
The PTBA president also urged the lawyers’ community to guide the taxpayers fairly and motivate them to pay their due tax liabilities in the vast national interest.
