Day: December 16, 2021

The telecommunication companies, courier companies, and big services providers would file a single sales tax return from January 2022 instead of multiple sales tax returns with the provincial revenue authorities of Punjab, Sindh, KPK, Balochistan, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

At present, telecom companies, courier companies, and other services providers have to file multiple sales tax returns with the FBR/provinces and Azad Kashmir and Islamabad Capital Territory.

The major benefit of the single portal would be available to the mobile phone companies to file a single sales tax return.

Prime Minister Imran Khan is expected to launch the Federal Board of Revenue’s new single sales tax portal for filing of single sales tax returns by all federal and provincial sales taxpayers from January 2022.

Sources said that the FBR is all set to launch a single sales tax portal by the end of the current month. The landmark initiative has been made possible after thorough discussions with the provincial revenue authorities of Punjab, Sindh, KPK, Balochistan, and AJK. This facility will enable taxpayers to file single monthly sales tax returns instead of multiple returns (6 in the past) on different portals; thereby, significantly reducing the time and cost of compliance, and thus achieving maximum efficiency.

The system would be intelligent enough to sift and collect revenues from a single taxpayer and distribute the same among multiple revenue agencies. This unique project would also help in resolving the longstanding issues of input tax adjustment among relevant stakeholders.

With the proposed launch of the Single Sales Tax Portal later this month, the existing cumbersome and tedious processes would be replaced with an efficient and automated system of tax adjustments, with minimum human involvement.

The portal would also be beneficial for tax collectors in having a 360-degrees view of taxpayers’ business activities across the country in order to maximize revenue potential and tax compliance.

By all standards, this is a giant leap forward in taxpayers’ facilitation and at the same time, a significant step in the harmonization of taxes between federal and provincial governments. Prime Minister of Pakistan is likely to launch this mega national initiative, later this month.

Source: Pro Pakistani

Pakistan’s liquid foreign reserves witnessed an outflow of $90 million on account of debt servicing in the week ending on December 10, 2021.

According to the data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the foreign exchange reserves decreased to $18.56 billion in the week. During the week, the foreign exchange reserves of commercial banks stood at $6.4 billion.

The foreign exchange reserves recorded inflows of over $2.6 billion in the previous week as part of the financial cover from the brotherly state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The inflows from Saudi Arabia will provide a cushion to the foreign exchange reserves for the next few months. However, the value of the Rupee against the Dollar has failed to recover despite the Saudi injection.

In order to minimize the pressure of foreign exchange outflows, the country needs to explore other avenues to build reserves.

Source: Pro Pakistani