Provinces to launch ‘single tax return’ facility for generating provincial GST on services

Lahore: The provincial tax authorities are expected to launch a single tax return filing system for generating general sales tax (GST) under the federal government’s ease-of-doing-business initiative, according to news sources.

This single tax return facility, in its initial phase scheduled for launch from this quarter onwards, will be available to the telecommunication industry. The reason for prioritising telecommunication is that provincial GST on telecom services is small in all four provinces, which makes it less prone to concur any issues.

Read: FBR to introduce single tax returns reform

The single tax facility will be soon extended to the banking and insurance sector in the existing financial year (2019-20) and in the following fiscal year, the facility will encompass all industrial sectors.

In his briefing to the Lahore Economic Journalists Association (LEJA), Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) Chairman Zainul Abideen Sahi said that all provincial bodies are were set to complete their tasks assigned to facilitate the launch of the single tax return system.

All the four revenue authorities also agreed in principle to introduce single return available on the single portal through Provincial Sales Tax Number (PSTN), for providing services across the provincial jurisdictions, he added. Furthermore, he said that one return technology for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) will be finalised in the next Inter-Provincial Committee (IPCC) meeting.

Read: Provinces seek representation in FBR and PRAL

The PRA chief said that the aim of IPCC is harmonisation of all service legislation to facilitate ease of doing business and eliminate inter-provincial disharmonies and address double taxation and transparent reporting issues.

He also disclosed that provincial revenue authorities have also agreed to introduce a negative list of taxable services and that Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) has initiated a study in this regard.