ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is likely to widen the gap in the cost of doing business for filers and non-filers as well as registered and non-registered taxpayers in coming years.
“The cost of doing business will be made so higher for non-filers and non-registered taxpayers in the coming years that they will prefer to come into the tax net to avoid payment of heavy taxes or withholding taxes in different shapes,” source at the FBR told Customs Today.
The source said that the FBR started following this policy after thorough and lengthy discussions with almost all the stakeholders. All the stakeholders moved their suggestions and recommendations to the FBR on the issue of widening of tax net by bringing more and more people into the tax net.
The source said that process of such deliberations started some two years back in the light of proposals moved by then Broadening of Tax Base (BTB) department and imposition of withholding tax on bank transaction for non filers last year was an initiative in this regard.
When asked about possible future steps for making the cost of business costlier for non filer, the source observed that there were a number options and suggestions under consideration of the concerned department.
“The non filers may be barred from procurement of property, vehicles as well as forced to pay heavy cost for ordinary utility services” the source said adding that at present, there existed a wide ranging gap in the cost of business for the non filer so it was beyond the understanding why people were not tending to join the tax net.
According to the source, FBR high officials were perplexed over lower ratio of people joined tax net despite such a wide gap in the cost of business. As per a study carried out by FBR, people were preferring paying heavy cost of business for being non filers under the social culture because there was no social culture of paying taxes to the government.
It means, the source said that people didn’t want to pay taxes to the government under a weak tax culture.
