The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to seek permission from the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet for taking action against over 700,000 most rich and influential persons to take government into confidence before invoking enforcement provisions (section 122-C) of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001.
Asrar Rauf Additional Secretary Revenue Division and official spokesman of the Revenue Division told Business Recorder here on Tuesday that the ECC would be taken into confidence before launching this exercise to bring over and above 700,000 most influential persons into the tax net. These include rich people, who are earning huge income, but paying nothing in the national kitty. In this regard, the FBR will develop and submit a framework on the potential taxpayers to the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet for approval by February 15, 2011. Once the FBR will obtain approval of the ECC, the tax department would be in a position to take action against the richest persons, who are not ready to pay any taxes.
The FBR would invoke section 122-C of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 for making provisional assessment against the taxpayers. He said that the section 122-C of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 empowers the department to complete provisional assessment of taxpayers, who failed to respond to notices of the department. There is a strong apprehension that the influential people would make hue and cry and try to pressurise the tax department to avoid documentation. To tackle such situation, the FBR would obtain prior permission from the ECC for taking action against such elite class reluctant to come into the tax net.
The FBR will seek data of bank accounts, foreign travel, immovable property and other data available with NADRA to bring over 7 lakh persons into the tax net. Wherever any one has utilised the CNIC the Nadra has record of the data, which is very useful for broadening the tax-base, Asrar Rauf added.
Meanwhile, an announcement of the FBR here on Tuesday said, two consecutive meetings of the Board-in-Council Chaired by Salman Seddique, Chairman FBR, were held at the FBR Headquarters on 3rd and 8th February. Apart from other administrative issues the Board's main agenda was to review and analyse the revenue positions from June 2010 to January 2011, and from February to June 2011. The Board had extensive technical deliberations and arrived at the conclusion that all the possible potential revenue sources would be tapped in order to meet the FBR's revenue targets for the current fiscal year. In this regard it was decided that:
For broadening the tax base and effective enforcement the Chairman along with CEO PRAL shall hold a meeting with Chairman NADRA for interfacing the potential taxpayers' data with Nadra. Regular meetings shall be held for analysing sectoral revenues in details, leading to needed corrective measures Frequent meeting will also be held with all the stakeholders of revenue generation process for determining causes of revenue decline and taking remedial actions therein, the FBR added.
Comments
Comments are closed.