FBR Decides on Releasing Missing Amounts of Sales Tax Refunds

FBR decided to release missing amounts of sales tax refunds that were stuck up due to design flaws in the Fully Automated Sales Tax e-Refunds (FASTER) System. In this regard, FBR issued Sales Tax Circular No. 03 of 2020 to prescribe standard procedure for sanctioning of missing amounts stuck in FASTER system due to system flaws.

The FBR said that in the wake of rollback of zero-rating extended through SRO 1125 of 2011 issued under Section 3(2)(b) and (6); 8(1)(b); and 71 of the Sales Tax Act, 1990 with effect from January 01, 2012, the FASTER system was introduced to process and sanction exporters’ refunds quickly.

Although, FASTER was rolled out inside the very first quarter of tax year 2020, yet it continued to malfunction on multiple counts producing suboptimal outcomes. These design flaws resulted in wide-going anxiety amongst the exporters’ community as large number of missing amounts claimed by them was not being reflected on their e-RPO after processing by the system. FBR said that this matter has two dimensions, which are improving the system design for future glitch –free processing of refund claims in FASTER, and devising a mechanism to deal with the past missing amount cases expeditiously and judiciously, has been resolved.