Non-resident ship/aircraft owners: names to be excluded from ATL for non-compliance

The Federal Board of Revenue will exclude the names of non-resident ship or aircraft owners from the Active Taxpayers List (ATL), who would not comply with the provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 from January 1, 2011.
It is learnt here on Thursday that the FBR would publish Active Taxpayers'' List referred to as ATL hence forth, comprising of the persons complying with the following within due date: Filing the return of income/statement u/s 114 & 115 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, filing the wealth statement u/s 116 and filing of return u/s 143 & 144 of the Ordinance 2001. The section 143 and 144 deals with the non-resident ship owner or chatterer and non-resident aircraft owner or chatterer respectively. The return filers under section 143 and 144 are covered under the FBR''s list of Active Taxpayers.
Under section 143, before the departure of a ship owned or chartered by a non-resident person from any port in Pakistan, the master of the ship shall furnish to the Commissioner a return. In case of section 144 of the Ordinance 2001, a non-resident owner or charterer of an aircraft shall furnish to the Commissioner, within 45 days from the last day of each quarter of the financial year, a return, in respect of the quarter.
These categories of taxpayers have to submit the returns as per section 143 and 144 of the Ordinance 2001 to remain within the list of compliant taxpayers ie ATL.
Sources said that the FBR will make it mandatory for the government departments and autonomous organisations to allow only those suppliers in participation of the Procurement Tenders, who are covered under the Active Taxpayers List (ATL). The FBR has finalised a plan for the enforcement of the ATL. Under the parameters of the ATL, only Active Taxpayers will be able to participate in the Procurement Tenders of the government departments, semi-government organisations and autonomous and regularity bodies. The Board would not allow any taxpayer, who is not covered under the ATL, to participate in the bidding process in near future. Therefore, only regular filers of income tax returns and statements would be allowed to participate in the process of government procurement.
In this connection, the Board would issues notices to the non-compliant taxpayers in the next 1-2 months. Even non-filers of Annual Return of Income for Tax Year-2009, Annual Employer Statement for TY-2009 and Annual Withholding Tax Statement u/s 165 for TY-2009 would be excluded from the ATL. The FBR shall publish Active Taxpayers'' List covering filing the return of income/statement u/s 114 & 115 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, filing the wealth statement u/s 116, filing of return u/s 143 & 144;
According to the prescribed criteria of the FBR, the following categories of taxpayers would be considered as compliant taxpayers: E-Filers of return of income/statement u/s 114/115 for Tax Year 2009, e-Filers of Annual Employer Statement on deductions made u/s 149 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, for tax years 2009 and e-Filers of Annual Withholding Tax Statement u/s 165 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, for tax years 2009, employees who''s annual income is Rs 500,000 and above (as reported by their employers) and e-filed their income tax returns for Tax Year 2009.