National Tax Number (NTN) may become mandatory for opening of bank account, seeking credit cards, loans, commercial and industrial connections of electricity/natural gas and buying/selling of property in urban areas.
Sources told Business Recorder on Wednesday that the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has drafted a budget proposal to broaden the tax base. In case the government approves the proposal, necessary amendments would be effected in the income tax laws.
Earlier, the Board had made it mandatory for purchasers of new cars to submit NTN.
Now, the income tax department has identified new areas for submission of NTN to be made part of CBR''s budget proposal for broadening the tax base, they said.
They said that the department is empowered to issue notice to NTN holders having taxable income for filing income tax return. If the bank accounts/credit cards holders, having taxable income, obtain NTN, then the department will be in a position to direct these persons to file returns. Thus, the decision would help in increasing the number of income tax return filers from next financial year.
Similarly, if the government agrees to make NTN mandatory for buying/selling of property, then property dealers and land developers would also be brought under the tax net.
According to the proposal, the businessmen applying for new utility connections would also be required to submit the NTN. The national tax number is considered to be the basic identifier, which could be used by the department to bring the potential taxpayers into the tax net.
Sources added that the total number of NTN holders would increase in the next fiscal following approval of the proposal. Under the on-going exercise of cleansing of taxpayer''s database, the NTNs of 1.9 million taxpayers have been declared as correct and subsequently made part of the ''NTN Master Index''.
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