ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to make National Tax Number (NTN) mandatory to start a business in the country.
According to sources, it will not be possible for any individual to start a business without obtaining the national tax number. It is expected that this system will be implemented soon on national level with the cooperation of provinces.
Chairman FBR Dr. Muhammad Irshad has confirmed that enough progress has been made in this regard and the FBR is working on it. He said that Pakistan needs this system. Every person should come into the tax net either he has taxable income or not.
There will be lot of benefits for those persons who have non-taxable income they will be able to claim refunds which they are paying in shape of withholding tax in different heads like pre-paid phone cards etc, sources said.
According to sources, Federal Board of Revenue is working on project jointly with revenue departments of the four provinces. Under the new system, every business would be linked with national tax number even no shop will be opened without NTN.
The FBR has designed this system and has suggested to provinces that start of new business should be conditioned with issuing license and national tax number.
According to FBR sources right now from whole country only 44,000 vendors are registered with FBR and there few of them are taxpayers. Soon FBR is going to launce campaign in this regard very silently through Regional Tax Offices. Jurisdiction of RTOs already has been extended. The campaign of registering old business is already in progress and it is part of seven trillion project of FBR.
