ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Tuesday allowed refund adjustment to facilitate taxpayers in filing returns for tax year 2022.
The FBR said it had received a number of representations from various Tax bars, businesses and other stakeholders on the issue of non-availability of refund adjustment tab in the return forms available in the Iris, an online portal of FBR for return filing.
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In order to ensure smooth filing of returns and to improve ease of doing business and decrease cost of compliance of taxpayers, the revenue board has enabled refund adjustment tab in the return forms.
“This facility will enable taxpayers to adjust their pending refund claims against admitted liability of Tax Year 2022 at the time of filing of tax returns who had filed applications to claim their outstanding refunds of previous years,” the FBR said.
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In this regard it is informed that refunds applications filed up to September 09, 2022 are eligible for adjustment of refunds.
“This facility is available to all taxpayers who have not claimed excess adjustment against previous years’ refunds,” the FBR added.
Previously, the Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) and affiliated tax bars in the country strongly criticized the FBR for denying the right of adjusting past years refunds against current liability.
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The PTBA on September 24, 2022 approached the FBR chairman to resolve the issue and the apex tax bar also suggested measures to facilitate taxpayers in this regard.
It said that adjustment of earlier refunds due, in the cases against admitted tax liability for Tax Year 2022 is a statutory right of a taxpayer, which has always been acknowledged, even by the system of IRIS from years to years.
Tax Year 2022 is the first Tax Year where for the key to claim adjustment of refund in the return form available on portal, has been blocked without assigning any plausible legal justification.
The sole stance of the officials of FBR in this respect is that various tax payers claim refunds in their returns which is not admissible.
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“We wish to bring on record that PTBA would never support any such illegal action of any person and at the same time it is submitted that the responsibility to verify the authenticity of refund was on the field formations of the FBR who never took any pain to verify the claim of refunds at their own,” the apex tax bar said.
On the other side facility to adjust refund against admitted tax liability for Tax Year 2022 has been taken away due to which the taxpayers have been forced to pay tax in cash, no matter how much refund is due to them.
