FBR chief assures ICCI to address tax related issues of the businessmen

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Muhammad Javed Ghani has said that he would try to address the tax related issues of business community so that they could be facilitated in promoting business activities and strengthening the economy.
The FBR chairman said this while talking to a delegation of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) that called on him led by its President Muhammad Ahmed Waheed. SVP ISCCI Tahir Abbasi, Chief Coordinator UBG FPCCI Malik Sohail Hussain and Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari were also part of the delegation.
Accepting the invitation of Muhammad Ahmed Waheed, Javed Ghani said that he would visit ICCI for an interaction with the business community to know about their tax issues and get their input for bringing further improvements in the prevailing tax system.
He said that efforts would be made to evolve a taxation system that could facilitate the growth of economic activities and help in improving tax revenue of the country. He welcomed the suggestions of delegation members for resolving problems and broadening the tax base.
Speaking at the occasion, Muhammad Ahmed Waheed congratulated Ghani for assuming the charge of chairman FBR and hoped that he would take measures to address the key tax issues of business community and promote the vision of the Prime Minister to turn Pakistan into a fast growing economy.
He said that the current government has made commitments to streamline the payment of tax refunds, but the process is quite slow due to which the business community is facing liquidity issues. He said the COVID-19 pandemic has created extraordinary challenges for the business community and the overall economy and this situation necessitated that FBR should focus on speedy automation of refunds including customs duty, sales tax and income tax to ensure that all tax refunds are automatically transferred to the bank accounts of the concerned taxpayers.
He said that another better option to solve the refunds issue is to allow taxpayers to adjust their payable taxes against the accumulated refunds. This mechanism would not only address the liquidity issues of business community but it would also improve the tax revenue of the government.- TLTP