Raza Kazmi
ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has reiterated once more that its national platform for filing of Sales Tax Return was fully functional and taxpayers must use the facility without any further loss of time. It is pertinent to mention that the National Sales Tax Return (“NSTR”) was prepared by FBR in order to facilitate the taxpayers who had to file multiple Sales Tax Returns to FBR and the different provincial sales tax authorities.
Building further on its ongoing drive to ensure ease of doing business, this innovative intervention is aimed at simplifying the filing process and minimizing the data entry. It is also designed to rule out calculation errors by adding some inbuilt functionalities.
After its launch in January 2022, some taxpayers complained of difficulties in filing the new return. Most of these issues came up due to initial learning difficulties and understanding of the new system. Therefore, in order to facilitate the smooth transition, a number of steps have been taken by FBR, including regular interaction with different tax bar associations to educate the tax practitioners, uploading of video tutorials and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on FBR’s website.
Furthermore, a new “Complaint” tab in IRIS has also been added to allow taxpayers to directly register their complaints instead of resorting to the FBR helpline. Thus, all the issues reported have been resolved, while the enhancements and new features suggested by the taxpayers are being added.
Benefitting from this national platform, a total of 161,379 Sales Tax Returns for the month of December 2021 were filed through NSTR compared to 159,503 returns filed for December 2020.
Likewise, to this date, 114,405 returns have been filed for the month of January 2022. No technical issue has so far been reported in the National Sales Tax Return. Therefore, all the remaining Sales Tax Registered Persons are requested to file their returns before the extended due date as no further extension will be granted by FBR.
Similarly, taxpayers are also encouraged to file their refund applications through faster, using this digital facility, without further delay.