KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday directed all commercial banks to ensure receiving payment of duty and taxes through over the counter (OTC) channel.
The SBP said that the finance department through circular on July 17, 2018 made it mandatory for banks to enable their Over-the-Counter (OTC) Channel for collection of taxes and duties.
Complaints are pouring in from different quarters, regarding non-entertaining of tax payment requests through banks’ OTC Channel.
So much so that Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has formally launched a complaint that PSIDs generated by WeBOC system for payment of customs duty and other taxes especially the levy on Mobile devices are not being entertained, by the bank branches.
In view of the above, all banks were advised vide email dated 15th March 2019 to improve their customer services in facilitating taxpayers with due courtesy.
Despite the above-referred instructions, there is no visible improvement, as complaints from different quarters are still landing with us.
It is therefore advised to share these instructions with all your branches across the country with the advice to ensure meticulous compliance and facilitate the taxpayers in payment of taxes and duties under the I Link’s OTC facility.
The branches shall also prominently display on their respective Notice Boards that “Taxes and Duties are accepted here under the 1Link’s OTC facility”. Further, banks shall also ensure that the branch staff has adequate understanding of the mechanism for collection of taxes and duties under the said facility.
The banks shall inform this department within 3 working days of the date of circular i.e. 27th March 2019 that these instructions have been communicated to all their branches for meticulous compliance and that the Notice Boards of branches are prominently displaying the message that “Taxes and Duties are accepted here under the 1Link’s OTC facility”.
