LAHORE: The IRIS system introduced by the IT section of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is an excellent effort to resolve a number of tax related issues. However, it will take time to get popularity among taxpayers, members of bar associations and tax practitioners.
These comments were made by Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) President Mohsin Nadeem in an exclusive interview with Customs Today.
Nadeem said that initially the taxpayers and tax practicing lawyers were not used to with the IRIS system and everyone, including FBR IT Department, PTBA and local bars tried their best to educate taxpayers about the new system by holding seminars and training workshops.
In answer to a question, the PTBA president said that Pakistani tax system needs a complete overhaul as income tax has become withholding tax.
He explained that the FBR is detecting tax on different rates at every income while income tax suggests that at the end of every financial year one should pay taxes on ones’ incomes after the deduction of expenses incurred during the whole financial year.
“This has resulted in further burdening the common people and the sales tax is being repeated many times,” the PTBA president said, adding that withholding tax has become a major source of collection of tax revenue for the government as the present system has totally collapsed. He informed that the FBR has more than 27,000 employees but of no avail.
“We have great potential of revenue collection in our economy and in order to tap this transparency is a must. Pakistan is among one of the top countries where charity is made generously but people avoid paying taxes due to the trust deficit in the tax authorities,” Nadeem highlighted.
“Our traders are ready to pay taxes at whatever rate but they avoid coming to the doorstep of the tax houses,” he went on saying.
However, he hoped that the new officials of FBR has great potential and they want to do something for the country and they will once become successful in making the tax department a real result oriented organization.
The new IRIS system is one good instance of the fact, he informed, adding that earlier we have to wait for months for registration and now it is mater of a few minutes.
The PTBA president also urged the lawyers’ community to guide the taxpayers fairly and motivate them to pay their due tax liabilities in the vast national interest.