Electronic documentation of 0.3 million taxpayers: Centralised Control Room being established

As National Assembly has not approved "Tax Laws Amendment Bill 2012" in its last session on Thursday, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to establish a Centralised Control Room at Board to electronically document 3 lakh potential taxpayers under alternate plan.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday that the FBR was desperately waiting for the approval of the "Tax Laws Amendment Bill 2012" during last session of the National Assembly. On last session on Thursday, the Bill has not been approved by National Assembly. There is no chance of Ordinance at this stage and FBR has implemented alternate plan for documentation in the absence of proposed amnesty scheme.
Under plan-B, the Centralised Control Room of the FBR, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and Pakistan Revenue Automation (Pvt) Ltd will make co-ordinated efforts to document 3 lakh potential taxpayers with the help of electronic utilisation of data. The FBR has started compilation of lists of 3 lakh potential taxpayers for documentation under the electronic system. The whole exercise would be monitored at the level of the Board's Centralised Control Room.
Initially the FBR will focus on 3 lakh super-rich persons for expanding the tax base. The serving of notices and utilisation of information would be done with the help of electronic system to eliminate chances of corruption at the level of the field formations. The information would be exchanged electronically and each stage would be monitored by the Centralised Control Room of the FBR. The electronic system would document all stages foe effective utilisation of available information collected from various sources.
At the same time, the FBR is in the process of finalising the reward scheme to provide 5 percent cash reward to the officers who would detect cases of potential taxpayers. The implementation of alternate plan for documentation would ensure that the data would not be compromised, they added.
National Assembly's Standing Committee on Finance had unanimously approved "Tax Laws Amendment Bill 2012" designed to increase total taxpayers to 2.2 percent of the total population from existing 0.3 percent by bringing 3.8 million potential taxpayers into the tax net. Only 0.3 percent population is paying tax which would be increased to 2.2 percent subsequent to implementation of the proposed amnesty scheme.
The FBR Chairman reportedly said 2.9 million potential taxpayers have been identified on the basis of their consumption patterns. He said this was possible by the linkage between the data of FBR and National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and the number of potential taxpayers on the basis of their consumption patterns has now increased to 3.8 million.
The government wanted to offer an opportunity to potential non-taxpayers to become taxpayers by paying a specific amount and the government would not question their past liabilities. The tracking of potential taxpayers on the basis of their consumption pattern would also help the tax authorities to bring land owners or agriculture sector into the tax net.