ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue Member Facilitation and Taxpayer Education (FATE) and Spokeswoman Riffat Shaheen Qazi has said FBR is taking serious measures to broaden the tax net.
“Over 31,000 notices were sent to ‘tax evaders’ in the last three months but only 1,153 people registered themselves on voluntarily basis,” she said while talking to the media after the inauguration of the Taxpayers Facilitation Desk at National Press Club.
Ms Qazi said that notices are being served with the help of Nadra data via courier service, adding, “However, only around 11,000 notices were received by the people, while the remaining 20,000 notices got returned to FBR headquarters.”
The spokeswoman cited many reasons including wrong addresses on the NIC cards or change of owners for the return of bulk of notices. She further said that FBR Chairman Tariq Bajwa has asked for involvement of other courier agencies to ‘create competition and served maximum notices on the people who are not on the tax roll’.
She said FBR is preparing a data bank with the help of Nadra and other related departments, where data is collected through third-party sources such a motor vehicle registering authorities, education institutions, capital value tax collected by FBR and provincial governments’ levy on purchase of immovable property, and electricity distribution companies, etc.
Ms Qazi said the taxpayers showing over Rs1 million cash in their wealth tax statements were required to pay income support levy while those with below Rs1m cash in bank accounts would exempted from the 0.5pc levy.