SIALKOT: Vice President Pakistan Tax Bar Association Muhammad Saqib Sheikh has said that the government was making all out sincere efforts to facilitate the tax payers besides ensuring the economical and financial stability through expanding the tax net and bringing maximum people under the tax net.
He stated this while talking to the newsmen here. He said that the federal government has recently passed the law to establish the separate directorate of “Broadening of the Tax Base” in the Federal Board of Revenue(FBR) , which would ensure the maximum facilitation to the tax payers and bringing maximum people under the tax net by providing them the maximum tax-related incentives as well.
Muhammad Saqib Sheikh added that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has also introduced a system of “ODS” (Operational Database System) under which the competent officials of the FBR would have the easy access to all the account holders’ bank accounts.
He said that more than 50000 audit cases have been lying pending at FBR across the country and the discouragement of the tax-payers by the FBR was the main reason behind this pendency, saying that the FBR should extend the final date of submission of the annual tax returns till December 31,2017 to ensure the maximum submission of the tax returns by the tax-payers as well.
Vice President Pakistan Tax Bar Association Muhammad Saqib Sheikh revealed that the total number of the tax payers was 1.1 million across 16 years ago in 2001, saying that now this number also remains about the same despite the passage of sixteen consecutive years as there was no considerable increase in the total number of the tax-payers across the country, amazingly.
He said that the total number of the banks’ account holders was about 15 million across Pakistan and out of which about 3 million people were doing the taxable businesses but they were still not registered as the tax-payers at the FBR, saying that the FBR seems to remain unable to find out/explore the new tax payers due to the lacked positive and effective tax policies as well.
He expressed grave concern over this situation that the people still remain unable to fill up their own tax returns despite the passage of 70 consecutive years to Pakistan to become into being.
