Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) in collaboration with State Bank of Pakistan’s Banking Services Corporation Thursday organized an awareness seminar on online payment of taxes and duties.

Addressing the business community, Chief Manager of SBP Banking Service Corporation Muhammad Aftab Alam said to develop a modern and robust payment systems and to improve efficiency, security, costs and access of payments and settlements infrastructure, SBP under Vision2020 has visualized strategic and tactical goals related to digital banking.

He said the government through Pakistan Customs has signed agreements with World Customs Organization (WCO) and WTO aimed at trade facilitation and introduction of online payment system for collection of duties and taxes.

He said the online tax collection system would provide multiple benefits to the taxpayers as it would facilitate them in payment of taxes/duties from anywhere without visiting bank branches.

It would reduce the cost of clearance process, save time of taxpayers and enhance the available options for them as previously taxes/customs could only be paid through NBP/SBP.

He said due to the convenience and ease of use, this system has removed dependency of taxpayers on middleman such as custom agents for the purpose of paying tax/customs.

Speaking at the occasion, President of ICCI Sheikh Amir Waheed said the prevailing complicated taxation system is not instrumental in enhancing tax revenue and urged that government should focus on developing a simplified and easy tax system that should encourage tax compliance.

He said industry is the major contributor in tax revenue and stressed that government for developing a fair tax system that should collect tax from every sector of the economy according to its tax paying ability.

He said instead of spending on non-developmental activities, government should spend tax money on health, education, public welfare that would help in promoting tax culture in the country.

He hoped that introducing online tax collection facility would help in improving tax revenue as it would reduce the interaction between taxpayers and tax collectors and eliminate the element of corruption.