ISLAMABAD: Despite getting two extended deadlines, majority of the lawmakers failed to file their income tax returns although the Federal Board of Revenue has announced issuance of tax directory, containing tax details of the parliamentarians, on February 15.
According to the FBR, 843 parliamentarians out of 1,172 have filed their income tax returns till Monday, the deadline revised to facilitate the MPs file their returns.
Now the FBR again has extended the deadline further till February 14, although it has already revised the deadline of February 7 to 10th. It is to be noted that the FBR will publish tax directory of the lawmakers of the country on February 15.
Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, JUI-F Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, former Interior Minister Senator Rehman Malik, Deputy Chairman Senate Sabir Baloch, PTI MNA Arif Alvi and others are non-filers of income tax returns.
Meanwhile, spokesman for the FBR Shahid Hussain Asad informed that the FBR would impose fine on those parliamentarians who have failed to file their income tax returns, as it does to the other common people,”.
It is worth mentioning here that Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar has announced to issue a tax directory of tax details parliamentarians by February 15 and another overall tax directory concerning business community as well as other citizens in March. The board has issued national tax numbers (NTNs) to all the members of the National Assembly, Senate and the provincial assemblies with the direction to file their returns by February 7 otherwise their tax status will be declared as non-filers in the tax directory.
On the other hand, out of 25 non-filers, 21 belong to the ruling party, while two each are from both the PPP and the PTI.
The PML-N members who have not yet filed their tax returns include: Ihsanul Haq Bajwa, Shoukat Ali Laleka, Muhammad Sibtain Raza, Ch Faqeer Hussain Dogar, Makhdoom Syed Ali Raza Shah, Shakeel Ivan, Mian Naseer Ahmad, Ramzan Siddique Bhatti, Malik Zulqernain Dogar, Bilal Yasin, Malik Ghulam Habib Awan, Syed Raza Ali Gilani, Ali Asghar Manda, Bilal Akkbar Bhatti, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, Javed Allauddin Sajid, Faizan Khalid Virk, Sajjad Haider Gujjar, Malik Sajjad Hussain Joyia, Rais Muhammad Mehboob Ahmad, and Malik Muhammad Javed Iqbal. The PPP members include: Mian Khurram Jehangir Wattoo and Makhdoom Syed Ali Akbar Mehmood whereas Sadia Sohail Rana and Zaheeruddin Alizai are from the PTI. The FBR has directed the defaulter MPAs to file their tax returns by 14th of this month.
