KPRA submits claims of Rs1.9b to FBR

Threatens to drag tax body to interprovincial committee if it fails to treat claims on priority

PESHAWAR: As the fiscal year comes to a close, the provincial revenue authority has written to the federal tax body, pressing the release of its claims of Rs1.9 billion under input tax adjustments.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA) had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on November 23, 2016, for input adjustment of sales tax on goods and services. The agreement was supposed to have applied retroactively from July 1, 2016.

Per the MOU, the KPRA was supposed to file its claims for Rs1.9 billion as input tax adjustments to the FBR on April 16, 2018. However, the FBR has yet to proceed with the matter.

But with the financial year set to close in a little over six weeks, the KPRA has urged the board to expedite the processing of its claim.

The KPRA director general dispatched the letter to the FBR on May 8, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune.

It states that the sum of the claim had been determined based on the data provided by the FBR from time to time.

It added that the K-P government has been pressing hard for the early finalization of the exercise and have attached high hopes toward receiving its rightful share from the federal government as claimed by registered tax payers.

“Any further delay in the finalization of the exercise and adoption of final figures are detrimental to the financial interests of the K-P government,” the KPRA chief wrote.

It adds that the claim sent by KPRA should be processed and sent to the finance division for further action as per the MoU.

The MOU states that after a case is referred by the joint committee of the FBR and KPRA, the finance division will have 15 days to deduct the net amount reflected as over-adjusted in favour of KPRA from the sales tax revenue collection figures of the FBR and transfer the sum back to the province.

The KPRA further asked the FBR to process the matter on priority as it warned the federal tax body of being dragged to the Inter Provincial Coordination in case of failure.

Meanwhile, KPRA Additional Collector Shahnawaz Khan told The Express Tribune that the claims filed were for the year 2016-17 as they worked out balances based on the previous fiscal year’s data.

“We have not yet worked out the data for the current fiscal year,” he said, adding that the FBR had not shared data of the tax payers due to which the process got delayed.

“We would write another letter to the FBR if they do not respond to this one,” he said confirming the letter, adding that they did a comparison of the invoices of the tax payers to calculate the balance and the figure of Rs1.9 billion came out.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2018.