The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will directly obtain data of telephone and mobile phone subscribers from Pakistan Telecommunica-tion Company Limited (PTCL) and cellular companies for accurate deduction of withholding taxes.
Director General of Withholding Taxes Muhammad Anwar Goraya on Thursday issued updated standing operating procedure (SOP) for the field formation to improve withholding tax collection across Pakistan.
The FBR said that the proper monitoring of tax collected and actually deposited could be done through effective monitoring of pay card companies. System needs to be devised in each case for proper checking of collection by pay card companies.
Secondly, the income tax officer holding jurisdiction over telephone companies should conduct the monitoring/audit. Information regarding new taxpayers need to be collected and transmitted to the concerned officer as all telephone subscribers are obliged to file the tax return but hardly any return is filed by any such person.
The Section (236) of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 requires collection of advance tax from the telephone subscribers and purchasers of prepaid cards for mobile phones, PTCL and other pay-phone companies. The exemptions include government, a foreign diplomat, a diplomatic mission, and a person who produces an exemption certificate from the Commissioner. The information on telephone subscribers has been computerised, which can be collected for cross verification and broadening of tax base, the FBR said.
Telephone and mobile phone subscribers' data of PTC and mobile companies is also being computerised. It is proposed that the data should be directly obtained from the PTC/mobile companies. After computerisation of FBR and its attached departments, the PTC and cellular companies should be prioritised as external sources of data for the Data Warehouse, proposed to be created by the Board.
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