ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has issued over 91,000 notices to unregistered persons and potential taxpayers during 2013-14 with the aim to expanding tax net. As per details, a meager number of 8,600 persons voluntarily filed their income tax returns and deposited an amount of Rs50 million. The process of provisional assessment is also under way against the non-compliant taxpayers involving a tax amount of Rs4.1 billion.
The FBR through the process has been striving hard to bring in 300,000 new taxpayers. A total of 100,000 notices will be issued by June 30, 2014. The FBR had issued around 82,000 notices by end March, 2014. Later, the number increased to 91,000 by May 2014. The FBR is confident that the assigned target of 100,000 notices will be achieved. A comprehensive administrative plan has also been devised by FBR along with cut-off dates set for implementation of various activities.
Out of the 91,000 notices issued to potential taxpayers during the current financial year, 30,355 notices were issued during the first quarter of the financial year and 30,891 notices were issued during the second quarter. The provisional assessment orders under section 122C of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 have been issued in more than 9000 cases. The government aims to bring 100,000 potential taxpayers in the net during the current financial year and an additional 100,000 in each of the following two years, they added.
In order to expand the tax net, the FBR is using the data of quantifiable economic activities of significant value that are indicative of significant asset creation or consumption expenditure by persons not on tax roll. For this purpose, a National Data Warehouse has been created in the FBR. The data warehouse primarily includes the data collected through third party sources such as motor vehicle registration authorities, educational institutions, CVT collected by FBR and provincial governments on purchase of immovable property, electricity distribution companies and the withholding tax statements.
