Tax refunds to be paid through automated system of CITRO

In a press release issued today FBR has announced that “in line with the vision of the Prime Minister to provide maximum facilitation to the taxpayers and under the guidance of Chairman FBR, a Centralized Income Tax Refund Office (CITRO) has been established at FBR in order to facilitate taxpayers by releasing income tax refund payments directly into their bank accounts in an expeditious and transparent manner. This would work in an end-to-end automated manner.
Member IR (Operations) inaugurated the launch of CITRO today by processing the 1st batch of Income Tax refund claims for payment through dedicated VPN tunnel established between FBR and State Bank of Pakistan. This is indeed another milestone achieved by the organization through incessant efforts of Member IR Operations and Member IT of FBR. This system would eliminate human interaction between tax authority and taxpayers as well as ensure quick relief to business community.
FBR is in process of enhancing this automation process to the next level by creating linkages between all federal and provincial departments as well as large numbers of withholders so that verification and processing of refund claims can also be made in a machine-enabled environment.”