Computerising property transactions data

The decision of Central Board of Revenue (CBR) to computerise details of all property transactions in the country with the help of provincial governments so as to develop a credible national database on such deals in all major cities is a step in the right direction.
The CBR had earlier decided to update the data on all housing societies, property dealers, land developers and real estate agents in the country as a part of its broader strategy to streamline, restructure and widen the tax base to generate additional revenue.
This is the first major step towards bringing the multi-billion real estate sector into the tax net. Another prong of the strategy being pursued by the CBR is to expedite the development of an Integrated Tax Management System (ITMS) to ensure prompt access to data concerning all taxpayers, including the real estate sector. Under this strategy a software has been developed to identify non-filers of tax returns.
There is also a vast category of under-filers of tax returns, which results in massive tax evasion every year. There are, at present, 1.75 million National Tax Number (NTN) holders in the country. The data collection on real estate sector is obviously going to be a painstaking job, as all data is at present lying with the provincial governments.
The procedure being followed by the CBR is that the tax official goes to the registrar of the provincial government for obtaining copies of the registers containing transactions' data, which is then translated from Urdu into English, preserved on CDs and dispatched to the CBR headquarters.
The burgeoning real estate sector in Pakistan has lately assumed dimensions that are simply mind-boggling. The mushrooming of both fake and "genuine" housing schemes by people with clout has, meanwhile, been turned into a mega money-spinner.
All this windfall has been possible largely because of a huge housing backlog, generated by a recurring shortage of some 270,000 housing units per annum due to the discrepancy between the annual need of 570,000 housing units and the actual construction of only 300,000.
Further, the raging consumerism in the country has generated a business boom, leading to a mushroom growth of shopping plazas. Analysts believe that many real estate tycoons and self-employed practitioners of vocations such as medicine, sculpture, painting, landscaping etc reap huge profits, but many of them either remain non-filers or under-filers.
This is a worrying situation, as the financial loss to the national exchequer caused by them is huge. The current glut in the real estate sector, primarily centred in urban areas, is due also to a tendency among a certain category of allottees to sell their plots at exorbitant rates to make easy money.
Computerisation of all property transactions in the country will thus not only streamline this crucial sector, but it will also help the government broaden the tax base by identifying many non-filers and under-filers.
Compiling and keeping manual data on real estate and land transactions has almost been turned into an "art form" by the ubiquitous patwari - a vestige of the colonial era. Copying from the old, fading provincial records is going to be extremely time-consuming.
It will also be prone to error, as the deciphering of old hand-written record is never easy. The data copied by tax officials should carefully be cross-checked before it is fed into the computer. The CBR has invested an amount of 149 million dollars to reform, restructure and automate the tax machinery to inject greater efficiency and accuracy in a system that has traditionally remained bogged down in manual documentation. Computerisation of all data can revolutionise the taxation system in the country.