ISLAMABAD: Syed Shabbar Zaidi, Chairman, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Wednesday said that around Rs5.5 billion sales tax refunds were issued through fully automated system.
In a massage, he said that the FBR had released to this date around Rs 5.5 billion worth of refunds under fully automated FASTER system.
“However the most important feature and the change in paradigm is that such refunds have been issued under fully automated, impersonal, harassment and corruption free system.”
In August 2019 the FBR amended the Sales Tax Rules, 2006 through SRO 918(I)/2019 to make mandatory the routing of refund claims through RMS of the FBR’s computerized system.
Based on the parameters in RMS, a refund claim shall be routed to any of the following three channels as described below, namely:−
(a) Fully Automated Sales Tax e-Refund System (FASTER), The provisions related to this channel are prescribed in Chapter V-A.
(b) Expeditious Refund System (ERS), The claims filed by the manufacturer cum-exporters under section 10 of the Act that do not fulfill parameters of FASTER channel and the same are considered as involving medium risk by RMS shall be routed to ERS. The RPO for verified amount shall be generated and forwarded to CSTRO for payment.
(c) Sales Tax Automated Refund Repository (STARR), The claims that do not fulfill criteria for both FASTER and ERS channels shall be processed through STARR in the manner as provided in rule 29.
For the refund claims processed through FASTER or ERS, the part of the refund claim that is not verified or not found admissible shall be subjected to system validation checks every week and Refund Payment Order (RPO) shall be generated for the amount found valid during each validation check. After every validation process, the information regarding RPO generated, if any, as well as the objections shall be communicated by the system to the refund claimant and also to the concerned RTO or LTU for information.
The FBR said that RPO so generated shall be communicated to the State Bank of Pakistan for payment in the aforesaid manner. After eight validation checks, including the initial one, if any amount still remains un-cleared, the same shall then be processed under STARR channel.
