Important Guidelines from CDC related Sales Tax Refund Bonds

Central Depository Company recently facilitated businessmen in their Sales Tax Refund payments through Refund Bonds for those claimants who had CDC Accounts. This initiative was taken subsequent to the approval of amendments in Supplementary (Second Amendment) Act, 2019 by the Federal Government.

In this regard, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) lately asked the refund claimants who have opted for Sales Tax Refund payments through Refund Bonds to open Sub Account or Investor Account with Central Depository Company of Pakistan Limited (CDC) and has issued procedures for opening of such accounts.

The issuance of these Refund Bonds in book entry form through Central Depository System (CDS) will also help create ease of doing business for claimants as they need to understand that the Refund Bonds will be issued electronically in the system and there will be no paper or certificate issued. The claimants may just log in to the CDC web system and confirm that their Refund Bonds have been credited.

In addition to this it is important to understand that the financing against Refund Bonds by Banks will also be very simple and efficient as Banks are already using CDC system and providing financing against different type of securities worth millions of rupees on daily basis. All the claimants need to do is to go to the Bank and mention their CDC account number and the Bank will retrieve all the information on real time basis from CDC system through CDC Pledge functionality and create a charge against these Refund Bonds with a simple click of the button.

The size of the first tranche of Refund Bonds is Rs. 7 billion and has been successfully credited in the accounts of the claimants who have opened CDC accounts. In order to facilitate claimants, CDC extended full support and established facilitation desks at RTO Faisalabad and Multan in addition to the services extended from its offices in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. In this regard, a workshop was also organized for the Towel Manufacturers Association of Pakistan at TMA House, Karachi on Saturday, June 01, 2019. Claimants who have not yet opened their CDC accounts can visit CDC website at www.cdcpakistan.com or call at 0800-23275 for guidance. The account opening forms are also available on CDC’s website.

While commenting on this effort, Mr. Badiuddin Akber, CEO-CDC said that “CDC has always been ready to play its part in the progress and development of the country’s economy. We are more than willing to introduce convenience in doing business through digitalization to make our economy more business friendly and this initiative is one more step towards it.”