F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Wednesday launched the Restaurant Invoice Management System (RIMS), with the active support of the business community of the federal capital Islamabad, aiming at improving sales tax collection and help in documentation of economy.
Initially the system, which was formally launched by Advisor to Prime Minister on Revenues and Federal Minister, Haroon Akhtar Khan, has been put in place at around 80 restaurants of the city to monitor the invoices.
Speaking on the occasion, the Advisor said that the credit of launching RIMS goes to business community which had extended its full support for its implementation.
Taking about the overall tax collection system, Haroon said that FBR had introduced many reforms during the past couple of years to improve the tax collection system in the country, adding that its IRIS system was lauded by World Bank for its performance.
He said that the Complaint Management System introduced by the board had delivered positive results and has improved overall compliance system.
In addition, the board had joined hands with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to ensure ease of doing business in the country by facilitating the smooth registration of the companies while the Customs’ one window operation had also proved a successful initiative. He said that Pakistan had signed Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) convention besides inking bilateral treaties to help check tax evasion.
The minister said that by singing OECD like conventions would make it impossible to hide taxable money. However, he was of the view that the information collected through this mechanism could only be used for tax purposes.
The Minister said that the board has been in agreement with NADRA and banks for exchange of information to help broaden the tax base.
He said that the new tax amnesty scheme was aimed at broadening the tax base.
He said that the incumbent government has ensured 16% net tax growth rate during its tenure, adding that the success of FBR was actually the success of the country as it was this institution which was collecting money for spending in various sectors of economy.
Later, talking to media, he said that the new amnesty scheme would help bring money into the country from aboard, which would help reduce fiscal deficit and help promote different sectors of economy.
