ISLAMABAD: The Finance Ministry, while defending position on promulgation of the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2016, highly appreciated the services of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for making untiring efforts to stabilize the national economy during the last two years.
The Finance Ministry also praised the FBR team led by Chairman Nisar Muhammad Khan for increasing revenue collection significantly as well as broadening the tax base.
Parliamentary Secretary Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan while issuing a policy statement on occasion of passage of Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2016 by the National Assembly said that FBR made enormous contribution in supporting the down trodden national economy by giving a 33% growth in revenue collection in last two years.
Moreover, he said that FBR had also increased the number of taxpayers from 0.75 million to 1.1 million by making untiring efforts. In this regard, the entire credit goes to FBR team that worked day and night without caring hot and cold of weather.
He further said that FBR had devised planning to approach potential taxpayers to bring them in the tax net on the basis of their life style, bank and land transactions as well as number of foreign trips.
In this regard FBR has obtained record and data of inflow of remittances from abroad from the State Bank of Pakistan to monitor the purpose of remittances. This practice will definitely result in broadening of tax net significantly.
While responding to objections and reservations expressed by opposition members on Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2016, Rana Afzal Khan said that entire trader community had been taken onboard on the bill because thorough consultations were held with trade bodies as well as representatives of chamber of commerce and industry over the country.
“The bill is aimed to bring traders in the tax net because traders community has 25% share in the national economy whereas its share in revenue collection was far lesser, therefore, lethargic deliberations were conducted with traders to take them into confidence on this bill” he maintained.
He further clarified that bill was not an tax amnesty scheme as had been introduced in the past, but an effort to bring more and more people in the tax net by offering them incentives. “However, members of the parliament have been exempted from this scheme just because of the fact that almost all MPs were regular taxpayers therefore they needed to be differentiated from the non taxpayers” he observed.
