Before the launch of this facility taxpayers had to visit the designated branches of SBP and National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) during working hours and sometimes had to stand in long queues to pay their taxes. Now, the taxpayers can pay their taxes through the ATM of any bank or from their homes and offices 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Taxpayers can even pay their taxes from outside Pakistan using their online bank accounts.
Speaking on the occasion, State Bank of Pakistan Governor Tariq Bajwa said that this facility would have three major benefits, namely facilitation of the taxpayer, reduction in the time lapse between payment of taxes and its reporting, and instant reconciliation of payments. These three benefits would improve the efficiency of the FBR.
The Governor SBP said that this project is in line with 'SBP Vision 2020', which envisages development of the robust payment system. The Government receipts and payments being the largest components of the country's payment system, the online collection of taxes will have a huge positive impact on the payment system efficiency and effectiveness. He said that SBP is also working with the provincial governments to extend the coverage of online tax collection system to the provincial taxes and receipts as well. He also emphasized the need for automation of government payments and said that SBP would work with AGPR and other stakeholders to eliminate cheques from government payments and shift to the direct credit system.
He said that the digital payments are taking over the cash payments with the passage of time. The FBR should also explore other avenues of facilitation to the taxpayer and maximize use of digital technology in future, he added.
Haroon Akhtar congratulated the State Bank of Pakistan, the FBR and 1Link for initiating and completing this important project. He said that the online collection system provides much needed relief and convenience to the tax payers and expressed optimism that the business community will take full advantage of the system and pay bulk of their taxes and duties using the online facility. He said as the system provides end to end solution right from filing of the tax return to payment of taxes to recording in government books of accounts and thus will bring efficiency, safety and transparency in Government tax collection system. He added that the system will also be instrumental in improving Pakistan's ranking in the World Bank's ease of doing business index.
In his address of welcome, Tariq Mehmood Pasha, Chairman FBR said that this was a revolutionary step and showed that if organizations worked with dedication and synergy, no goal was beyond reach. He also said that this, along with FBR's other measures including the automatic registration of a company on its incorporation by SECP, launched last week, would substantially improve Pakistan's ranking on the World Bank's ease of doing business index and attract local as well as foreign investment.
The Chairman FBR said that this project is the result of effective collaboration between FBR and SBP and will go a long way in improving the government tax collection system. He said that tax payers' facilitation is the core objective of the online collection system. The tax payers and business community paying taxes online would be able to have confirmation of their tax payments on real time basis; the importers will be able to get their goods released immediately after payment of the taxes and duties. He said that the online collection system will run in parallel with the cash/pay order based system and the tax payers will have the option to use the system of their respective choice and preference for payment of taxes, he added.
Sharing key features of the new scheme, SBP said that the online tax collection system is live now and the tax payers can pay their taxes and duties from the convenience of their homes, offices or ATMs at any time 7 days a week. The system is based on the 1Link Biller module, whereby FBR has been added as one of the Billers on the banks' Bill Payment page. To pay the taxes and duties, the tax payers/importers will fill their tax and custom duty payment details in FBR (IRIS) and Customs (WeBOC) to generate PSID (payment slip ID). The PSID so generated will then be used to access the tax/duty payment details on the banks' webpage or ATM as the case may be. The tax payer or their agent will then pay the tax by debiting his/her bank account for onward credit to the respective government account in SBP. The whole process is online and fully automated.