ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has recovered Rs 52,656.697 million from 486,238 tax defaulters during the last two years.
During the fiscal year 2014-15, the FBR traced at least 242,087 tax defaulters and recovered Rs 24,856.262 million from them whereas both the figures increased in the next fiscal year 2015-16 in which the FBR detected 244,151 tax defaulters and recovered Rs 27,800.262 million from them. This was made possible due to consistent and persistent efforts of the FBR authorities for increasing the tax revenues.
A source at the FBR told Customs Today that the traced out tax defaulters were from all three categories of tax, including the income tax, sales tax and federal excise duty. Most of the defaulters belonged to the income tax category.
The source said that 198,976 income defaulters were traced in 2014-15 whereas this number reached 294,626 in the next fiscal year 2015-16. Under the sales tax category, at least 42,410 were traced in 2014-15 and 48,765 in 2015-16. The least number of tax defaulters were traced from federal excise duty category; 701 in 2014-15 and 762 in 2015-16. Yet the number of traced out tax defaulters has increased in the last two categories.
The source said that major portion of recovered amount was also from the first income tax defaulters and it was Rs 21,744.768 million in the fiscal year 2014-15 and this figure declined to Rs 15,666.390 million. But in the category of sales tax defaulters, the figure soared up to Rs 4,118.378 million in fiscal year 2015-16. The amount recovered in the fiscal year 2014-15 from the federal excise duty defaulters was Rs 825.160 million which increased to Rs 8,015.494 million the next year.
The source said that there was fluctuation in the number of traced out defaulters and recovered amount in both the fiscal years in different categories, yet aggregated number of detected defaulters and amount increased in the later fiscal year compared to the earlier one which was a reflection of the FBR’s commitment to their profession and national interest.
