ABDUL RASHEED AZAD

ISLAMABAD: To get rid of local and foreign loans, the government needs to bring agriculture and real estate sectors under tax regime, broaden tax net and ensure transparency in tax systems.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Chairman Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP), Ashfaq Tola said that there is a dire need to bring every sector and person with a potential to pay taxes into tax net to minimize the country’s dependency on foreign and local loans and reduce budget deficit.

He said that the country can generate hundreds of billions of rupees by bringing real estate sector under tax regime. For instance price of a residential plot in DHA Karachi in papers is shown Rs10 million but the piece of land by the property dealers or land owners is being sold at Rs100 million or above which deprives country of massive tax collections. He said that the ICAP has proposed the government to end disparities in the tax system. He maintained that at present tax payers are facing five different kinds of tax systems from federal level to district and town level; therefore’ the government should bring a uniform tax system.

He said that a uniform service tax law should be agreed upon by all provinces and the federal government for implementation in their respective jurisdictions by respective tax authorities. Furthermore, a uniform tax return may also be introduced for the taxpayers. The revenue authorities should decide the basis of levy of indirect tax, which can be origination or termination to establish jurisdiction of taxation of services.

To promote transparency and uniform interpretation, the First Schedule should be standardized, covering all services along with standard tariff headings and standard definitions. The standard first schedule should be adopted by all provinces and Islamabad Capital Territory while levying sales tax on services in their respective jurisdictions.

One return may be filed with the identification of provincial head of account and direct deposit of share of tax of each province and central directorate of audit with representation from each province and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

The ICAP has recommended that the policy decisions are required with the objective to broaden the tax base to enhance resources and plug tax leakages. All sectors of the economy should be brought within the tax net. Irrespective of the source of earning, anyone who earns beyond a certain threshold of income should be necessarily required to file tax returns. Moreover, an efficient model for growth requires equitable taxation and credible tax administration.

Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio is the main impediment in the economic development, which has compelled the government to take short-term tax measures. At present, there is over dependence on the indirect taxes. It is, therefore, felt that withholding tax in indirect taxes both in the federal and provincial level should be withdrawn. The FBR should focus on increasing the tax base instead of further burdening the existing taxpayers.

The corporate sector, which is the most documented segment of economy, has been neglected due to extreme abrupt tax collection measures taken by the government in order to meet annual budget targets. Further, the organized sector is seriously affected by incidence of sales tax (and federal excise duty, where applicable) as against non-documented economy/ unorganized sector.

The service, wholesale/retail, transport and the agriculture business sectors are still not fully documented and most of them are out of the tax net. Even more than three million persons having commercial electricity connections are hardly into the tax net.

There is a dire need for the policymakers to simplify the complex system of determining the tax liability. Immediate remedial measures include abolishing taxes like alternative corporate tax, tax on undistributed profits and super tax. Service providers, both the corporate and non-corporate, should be exempted from levy of minimum tax.

By charging nominal additional tax and creating narrow difference in tax deduction of filers and non-filers, the government failed to attract unregistered persons to get them registered. In order to obtain/utilize party wise data of unregistered persons from whom sales tax @ 1% is deducted, a minimum threshold for sales tax withholding should be introduced in lines with the income tax law.

Tax administration requires institutional rebuilding, designed to strengthen the independent policy-making role of the FBR, modernize the tax system and formulate independent, fair and transparent tax policies. Efforts are required to separate tax policy and tax administration. The FBR should be responsible for implementation of policies and collection of revenue only. The FBR may be converted into an autonomous and independent institution that has structural and strategic support necessary for its organizational development and capacity building.

Power to make adjustments to compute accounting income should not rest with commissioner and accounting income as reported in the audited financial statements of the organization, which are prepared in accordance with IFRS and Companies Act 2017.

It has become practice of tax authorities to visit the taxpayer’s bank and coercing the bank manager to immediately pay the amount from taxpayer’s account against the tax amount recoverable or else face the consequences. In some cases, recoveries are made in haste even where the matter has already been decided by the judicial forum in favor of taxpayer.

The ICAP has proposed following recommendations for the upcoming budget:

All presumptive/value addition/fixed tax schemes should be abolished and all such sectors/ goods may be brought under the uniform tax regime to promote the culture of income-based taxation rather than receipt-based taxation. The scope of opting out of final tax regime be expanded to cover all incomes falling under FTR and the rates of minimum tax for opting out of FTR be reduced to raise the difference between final tax and minimum tax by at least one percent.

The Section 111 (4) (a) of the Income Tax ordinance should be abolished; alternatively the applicability of Section 111(4) (a) should be made conditional i.e. remittances by an overseas non-resident Pakistani to a relative as defined in Section 85(5) without any threshold.

However, remittances by others may subject to tax scrutiny, if it exceeds the limit prescribed by the State Bank of Pakistan, which is currently $ 10,000. Alternatively, until this provision is abolished, this kind of remittance should be restricted solely for the purpose of investment in industrial undertaking in Pakistan.

Minimum tax should be reduced to 0.5%. Moreover, companies having a gross loss position for the year should be excluded from the purview of the minimum tax. The law should also be clarified to allow carry forward of minimum tax paid in the year of loss.

The Section 65A should be reinstated in order to encourage documentation and broadening of tax base. Moreover, condition of 90% supplies to registered persons be reduced to 75%. The restricted benefit of this tax credit to manufacturers be extended to all persons registered under the Sales Tax Act.

The FBR values of immoveable properties are far below the fair market values, and these may be gradually increased. However, at the same time the rates of stamp duty and other transfer taxes levied by provinces should be reduced to keep the cost of transfers stabilized.

To promote, encourage and incentivize export of services, income from export of all types of services should be exempted from tax like IT enabled services. Alternatively, export of services be subjected to reduced rate of tax as in case of export of goods.

The Section 38 empowers the tax department to conduct investigation without any time limitation. Accordingly, where a detailed investigation of a registered person has already been conducted under Section 38, there should not be a need to conduct audit of that person under Section 25.

Extra tax at the rate of 2% is levied and collected by the manufacturers and importers on specified goods. Subsequent supply of these goods is exempted from the payment of sales tax including those as made by retailers as per Rule 58T (5). Extra tax is collected to ensure collection of value addition of subsequent supply stage; therefore, levying further tax is an irritant and absurdity which needs rectification to streamline the VAT regime.

The scope of Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee (ADRC) has been restricted to issues on facts only. Further, the decision of the ADRC is subject to an overriding approval of the FBR. To curb the ever-increasing and never-ending litigation and disputes between taxpayers and tax department, ADRC mechanism should be used to resolve all taxpayers’ matters without any restriction, and its decision should be made binding on the FBR.

The commissioner appeals should be brought under the administrative control of Federal Ministry of Law and the Appellate Tribunal under the control of the high court of the respective jurisdiction. Furthermore, there is a need to establish tax courts appointing judges of the high court as its members for speedy process against the decision of ATIR.