The data of newly registered cars with provincial excise departments and property transactions in Karachi would be used for selection of cases for audit at the Large Taxpayer Units (LTUs) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs).
Sources told Business Recorder on Friday that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to use third-party information, in a limited manner, to ensure the efficacy of case selection system for audit. Tax authorities shared this idea during last board-in-council meeting for effective use of third-party information for verification of taxpayers' data and selection of cases for audit.
It has been decided that a pilot project would be started at Islamabad for utilising information about registration of new cars with the provincial excise department. Secondly, a separate project would be launched in Karachi to check information about buying and selling of property involving huge amounts.
The information would be used to verify the taxpayer's actual income and detect concealment in declaration of returns, if any. Sources said that the authenticity of motor vehicle and property data would be confirmed during limited verification exercise.
The board also wanted to examine credit cards data and commercial transactions at banks including State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) for verifying information declared by taxpayers of non-corporate sector during field audit.
The Board would use third-party data as an effective tool to examine the income declared by the taxpayers. The verification of data from external sources would give a clear picture about the state of business affairs of the registered persons in the non-corporate sector.
Sources said that the potential source of information covers a number of departments. The data from some of these sources would help in collecting information about the taxpayers actual income. The data collection from these sources depends on the facility of interface with these departments.
Potential source of information includes federal government; National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra); AGPR & MAG; Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Industries; Minfal; Commerce Ministry; Federal Bureau of Statistics (FPS); intellectual property rights organisation; Pakistan Export Development Authority; Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) data; investment data (bonus shares and dividend); business registration included professional tax; public safety licensing; dealership licensing included car dealers and real estate agents; fisheries; livestock; entertainment; pharmaceutical business; utilities including electric power companies; gas companies; telecommunication; cellular companies; travel and cargo; provincial government; land records; property tax; specialised departments like industry; mining, civil works; forestry; procurement; commercial data (banks/SBP); credit card utilisation data; business transactions and purchases and sales.
However, FBR has not yet developed the facility for electronic exchange of information from all these sources. Therefore, selected sources of information would be utilised during the course of audit.
Comments
Comments are closed.