Taxmen advised to avoid double audit of businesses for VAT

The revenue authority has instructed the Value Added Tax (VAT) intelligence to guard against simultaneous double-audit of businesses' accounts books with a view to reducing the scope of harassment of taxpayers.
Officials said the instruction came from the National of Board of Revenue (NBR) as audit of businesses simultaneously by the VAT office concerned and the intelligence directorate in a same period creates scope of harassment.
The VAT department of the board recently issued an order with the directive, giving a detailed 'charter of functions' for the VAT audit, intelligence and investigation directorate.
The directorate will prepare a quarterly audit plan and send the list to the commissionarates concerned so that the field-level VAT offices can exclude the businesses from their respective investigation list.
The VAT offices will prepare their investigation plan after receiving the list of the audit wing, according to the order.
The departments will have to exchange written documents between them to avoid double-audit by the VAT offices, the charter says.
There are widespread allegations from the businesses on auditing the companies simultaneously by two wings of the NBR that causes difficulties in running their activities smoothly.
However, the chief of the audit wing can investigate any of the companies or businesses or individual, if s/he suspects any wrongdoing on the basis of intelligence information.
In that case, the wing will have to inform the VAT wing concerned on the matter.
The directorate will investigate refund of revenue that the business received or claimed to the VAT offices. The wing will have to send report to the VAT commissionarate on completion of investigation for taking legal action, the charter said.
The directorate will send a monthly report of its audit, intelligence and investigation activity to the board.
It will have to scrutinise tactics of tax evasion and recommend the VAT commissionarate concerned to take preventive measures.
"The audit directorate will maintain an updated database on vulnerable businesses, companies and individuals for VAT evasion and conduct its activity through information management," says the charter of dos and don'ts for the taxmen.
    doulot_akter@yahoo.com