Sales tax returns of all provinces, Federation to be unified: SRB chairman

KARACHI: The sales tax returns of all the four provinces and the Federation will be unified and a decision has been taken to introduce a single window in this regard.

The provinces got great benefit through the 18th Amendment and their income had increased manifold. Work is being carried out to introduce a single window in order to collect all taxes of Sindh government under one roof. The sales tax ratio has been reduced to 3 percent on the IT sector. The Sindh Board of Revenue (SRB) has started work to bring hospitals, clinics and other professions into the tax net. Tax revenue has been increased due to imposition of PoS on restaurants. The increase of 23 percent in tax recovery has been noted during the current year.

These views were expressed by Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) Chairman Wasif Memon while talking to The News. He said that provinces are collecting sales tax on services and, therefore, banks, telecom, insurance, construction and all other companies whose offices are across the country are facing problems in submitting tax returns separately. But, he said, good news for the business community is that a decision has been taken to introduce a single return form and it will be introduced after removing some legal complications.

The SRB chairman said that the business community will get a lot of facilities after the introduction of one window and it will be set up under the National Tax Council. He said that in this way, work is under process for one window to collect sales tax, agricultural income tax, social security, excise duty, motor vehicle tax, infrastructure tax, professional tax and workers welfare tax under one roof.

Wasif Memon said that the income of provinces has been increased after the 18th Amendment. He said that an ordinance was introduced in the year 2000 to transfer sales tax to the provinces and since then, the FBR used to collect this tax till 2010 but Sindh got only Rs32 billion sales tax in those ten years. From 2010 to 2020 period, the SRB had collected Rs988 billion, which is quite a significant increase.

The SRB chairman said that SRB is expanding its circle and recently it had set up its regional office in Nawabshah. He said that the SRB collects 52 percent of all taxes including property and excise taxes in the province. He said that SRB has collected Rs63 billion till December 1, 2022, while last years the recovery was Rs51 billion. He said that they will easily get their target. He said that significant increase in revenue collection is witnessed due to implementation of Point of Sales (PoS) system on restaurants and now its network was being expanded and food streets and other shops were being brought into the tax net.

Wasif Memon said that disputes on the issues of franchise services, advertisement services, insurance services and port terminal operators are there and work is being carried out to solve those issues at the NTC level. He said that ratio of sales tax in Sindh is 13 percent, which is comparatively lower than other provinces.