KARACHI: Retailers connected to the Federal Board of Revenue’s Point-of-Sale (POS) Integration System have been unable to file correct tax returns for the past two months due to the malfunctioning of the new National Sales Tax Return (NSTR) portal.

       Chainstore Association of Pakistan (CAP) Chairman Tariq Mehboob informed Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on March 22 said that Tier-1 retailers are facing problems to comply with complicated and erroneous processes due to the malfunctioning portal.

       In the recent past, CAP — the official trade body for organised retail sector — has identified the various deficiencies and communicated these to the FBR in meetings and letters multiple times.

       Upon the visit of FBR chairman to the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry this week, these issues were highlighted once again.

       However, the problems have still not been resolved due to possible capacity limitations of the FBR IT setup.

       Due to the flawed FBR system, integrated retailers have had to pay extra sales tax for consecutive two months due to disallowance of genuine credit invoices by the NSTR portal.

       Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2022