ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has started a campaign against non-filers and tax evaders, Khawaja Tanveer Ahmad Member Operations has said.
The board has collected the data of the citizens from various government agencies, including National Data Base Registration Authority, Water and Power Development Authority, Motor Registration Authority and Excise and Taxation offices, cellular companies, Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation, Civil Aviation Authority, Sui Southern and Northern Gas Pipeline companies, Capital Development Authority, Karachi Development Authority, Lahore Development Authority, private housing societies and banks.
All the government departments and agencies will be connected with the main data center, which is established by Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited at the FBR Headquarters in Islamabad.
Through this record, the FBR authorities will detect the names of the citizens who fail to pay taxes despite having huge income and assets, he said, adding that they will be issued notices during the first phase of this campaign. He said the cases would be forward to the regional tax offices in case they fail to pay the taxes.
He said that the data will be collected through utility bills, properties, vehicles and traveling abroad to identify the current income and assets of a potential taxpayer. He said, “We have set a criteria for non-filers and I have directed all the chief commissioners and commissioners not to create harassment among the potential taxpayers.”
He said that friendly attitude will be adopted and if anyone is involved in tax evasion or he has submitted false statement or mis-declared his assets, the officers concerned will deal under relevant provisions of the income tax laws.
He said we will have to increase the tax revenues because Pakistan cannot move forward without doing this and we have decided that in current financial year 2017-18 around 0.2 million new filers will added in tax net through broadening of tax base and for this purpose we are establishing BTB, who will work independently as a subordinate office of FBR under Director General, as like Directorate General Intelligence and Investigation Inland Revenue is working.
He said we have no tax culture in Pakistan, every sector asked for tax concession and no one is ready to pay their due share in taxes with his own willingness. We are struggling hard to increase the tax revenues and although it is difficult but I hoped that we can achieve the set revenue targets for current financial year (2017-18). He said FBR need more resources especially in terms of human resources to tackle the current revenue situation because more than eleven thousand employees of FBR had been retired.
