ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is seeking assets details of 12,788 non-filer candidates contesting the upcoming general elections from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
However, the tax information could be obtained after the endorsement of incoming government.
“It will be just farce on part of scrutiny process if there will be no follow-up undertaken for expanding the already narrowed and shrunk tax base. The FBR intends to seek details of assets and taxes paid by the contesting candidates and will compare with its own database to ascertain discrepancies and generating tax demands for broadening the tax base,” said official sources.
During the scrutiny process, the FBR has verified whether the candidates filed their returns in the last three years and the exact amount paid by them during these three years.
The ECP has not shared annexure of declared assets filed by candidates publicly because the Returning Officers (ROs) have not yet forwarded all details to centralised system placed by the ECP.
The FBR sources said that around 60 percent candidates out of 21,438 were found non-registered or non-filers so it should not remain as just information collection exercise. Although, the scrutiny process could not prove as tool to bar alleged tax evaders for contesting elections but at least it should be used as tool to ensure expansion in the tax base.
The FBR has been found really hard to bring potential non-filers into tax net. In last fiscal year, the FBR has received only over 1.2 million returns despite this fact that the number of National Tax Number (NTN) stands at 3.7 million in all over the country. It clearly indicates that even NTN holders did not bother to file their tax returns.
