The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has given a new facility to the refund claimants to file their non-export related sales tax refund claims under the Expeditious Refund System (ERS) or can go to the regional tax offices for filing claims through the old ‘STARR’ system.
The FBR has conveyed the decision to the Regional Tax Offices due to limited capacity and technical issues with the Fully Automated Sales Tax e-Refund (Faster) system while dealing with the sales tax refund claims where there is no export.
The taxpayers have been permitted to use other old systems of the FBR like STARR or ERS for filing non-export related sales tax refund claims till June 30, 2021. Thus, the refund claimants who are unable to process their claims through the FASTER can now go to the regional tax offices for processing of their refund claims, FBR officials explained. ------------------------------
The FBR’s instructions issued to the field formations here on Monday revealed that the registered persons claiming non-export and/or input tax carryforward based sales tax refund in terms of rule 34 of the Sales Tax Rules, 2006, are required to file the claim through submission of Form-7A with the Sales Tax Return.
And whereas, the said Form is still not enabled and registered persons claiming refund under the aforesaid rule are facing difficulties in the filing of refund claim through Form STR-7A. ------------------------------
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The Fully Automated Sales Tax e-Refund (Faster) system lacks the capacity to replicate data of more than one tax period or process claims where there is no export.
Now, therefore, in order to remove the difficulty in implementing the provisions of rules and to address refund issues faced by the registered persons, in the exercise of the power conferred under section 55 of the Sales Tax Act, 1990, the Board is pleased to allow the filing of carry-forward based or non-export related refunds through RCPS (refund software used for uploading data) at tax offices in STARR or through Expeditious Refund System (ERS) up to June 30, 2021.
The field formations are accordingly advised to receive, process and dispose of such refund claims as per law expeditiously, FBR directive to the field offices added.