ایف بی آرتقریبات

The Withholding Taxes Zone, Regional Tax Office, Lahore organized a workshop on ‘Withholding Taxes – Deduction / collection and deposit into the National Treasury’ on 11th of April, 2014 in the RTO’s main conference room. This workshop is a part of a series of workshops specifically designed for major Public Sector Departments falling within the jurisdiction of RTO, Lahore. The main purpose of the workshop was to train master trainers in every government department for ensuring proper withholding tax deduction and its deposit into the National Treasury on the same day of deduction and to answer queries on the issue. This workshop also consisted of a special segment on ‘method of cheques preparation’ as well as ‘PSID generation’ so as to ensure speedy deposit of Government Revenue in the National Treasury.

The workshop was attended by a vast array of representatives from various government departments. The workshop was divided into two parts: i) withholding taxes and related laws/rules/procedures, presented by Mr. Ali Adnan (DCIR), and Mr. Bilal Zamir (ACIR); ii) PSID (Payer Subscriber ID) generation, presented by Ms. Tahira Qureshi (PRAL). During the first segment participants were given an overview of the withholding taxes and their importance with special focus on deduction u/s 153 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. They were apprised about the changes in applicable rates after the Finance Act 2013. The legal provision regarding obligation of FTN holders to file statements u/s 165 were also highlighted. It was urged that all public sector organizations implement a robust mechanism for recording and processing cheques in order to avoid revenue leakages. They were informed about the various branches of SBP and NBP where tax can be deposited.

During the second segment participants were given training on how to generate the PSIDs for income and sales tax. It was clarified that by self-generating the PSIDs, the withholding agents will have ample time to check the accuracy of the data and will spend far less time in queues at the banks.

The presentation was followed by question answer session which mainly pertained to the procedure for obtaining STRNs, the difficulties of consolidation of data in case of hundreds of DDOs within an organization, retrieval of dishonoured cheques, monitoring of imprest accounts, difficulty of verifying exemption certificate etc. The team from withholding zone adequately addressed all the questions, placing reliance on the relevant laws, rules and procedures.

The participants were given contact details of all the relevant withholding zone officers, starting from Commissioner Inland Revenue (Withholding Taxes Zone, RTO, Lahore), who may be contacted for any clarification/guidance. The withholding agents were assured that all necessary help/guidance shall be extended to facilitate them in the discharge of their legal obligations. At the end of the workshop, tea was served to all participants and informal discussions were held on the subject. The workshop ended by a vote of thanks from the participants for arranging such a thorough, informative and detailed workshop on withholding taxes.