ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is carrying out the audit of cellular companies with regard to the collection of withholding tax for the period between July and September 2017. At present, withholding tax audit is underway only one of the four cellular companies. In this regard, the FBR officials are scrutinizing the final data uploaded by cellular companies on the IT-based electronic data link.
However, sources at the FBR refused to reveal the name of the telecom company whose audit is underway. But the sources said that the field officers along with IT experts from IT/PRAL (FBR), comprising six members, were conducting the field-based audit of the company under section 236 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
The sources said that FBR launched a pilot project for devising an IT-based mechanism for accessing subscribers’ withholding transactional data for ensuring effective monitoring of withholding tax. Under this pilot project, the FBR with the assistance of the Pakistan Revenue Automation (Pvt.) Ltd (PRAL/IT Wing), was able to develop a software utility portal.
The sources said that all the four telecom companies were required to upload their monthly customers’ transactional data on the prescribed format and requirements. For this purpose, necessary support and assistance is sought from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the telecom regulator, whenever compliance issues arose.
“This pilot project/mechanism enabled during the current financial year 2017-18 and all four mobile phone companies are now transmitting/uploading their customers’ transactional data to IT/PRAL,” the sources added, saying that the aforesaid portal enabled a more transparent and reliable customers’ withholding tax data transmission to FBR and the position of subscribers’ withholding taxes collected by all four cellular companies under section 236 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
In this connection, the sources said that FBR’s IT/PRAL team in coordination with the concerned commissioner of Large Taxpayers’ Unit (LTU) remains in constant contact with the Telcos’ technical/management teams to resolve outstanding issues relating to data harmonization and other data requirements as they arise during the process of data harmonization checks by the IT/PRAL team.
After extensive technical exchanges between Telcos and Pakistan Revenue Automation (Pvt.) Ltd (PRAL, I.T Wing, FBR), the source said that all the four cellular companies -M/s Telenor Pakistan (Pvt) Limited, M/s Pakistan Mobile Communication Limited (Mobilink/Jazz), M/s Telecom Mobile Ltd (Ufone) and Ms. CM Pak (Pvt.) Ltd (Zong) started uploading their customers’ monthly transactional data with effect from July, 2017, on to the FBR’s electronic data-uploading Link.
The sources said that an initial analysis of the data uploaded by the four companies reveals the average size of each Telco’s subscribers/consumers base as provided here under; Telco Average Subscribers Base (FY 2017-18) Telenor over 40 million subscribers Mobilink over 52 million subscribers Ufone over 18 million subscribers Zong over 28 million subscribers .
“The proceedings are underway as per due process of law. The withholding income tax audit of other Telcos would also be carried out after taking into account the outcome and inference drawn from the withholding audit of the said company,” the sources concluded.
