National Saving Centres and Pakistan Post: FBR's WHT monitoring exercise fetches over Rs one billion

Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation Inland Revenue (IR), Federal Board of Revenue has recovered over Rs 1 billion during last two months through on-going withholding tax monitoring exercise of the National Saving Centres (NSCs) and Pakistan Post under section 151(1)(a) of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Monday that the directorate is expected to collect Rs 2 billion by the end of June 30, 2012. In April 2012, the field formations have reported collection of Rs 930 million as withholding tax under section 151(1)(a) of the Ordinance 2001 from NSCs and Pakistan Post as compared to Rs 437 billion in April 2011. The agency has collected Rs 829 million during March 2012 as compared to Rs 299 million in the same period last fiscal. So far, withholding tax collection stood over Rs 1 billion. By June 30, 2012 the collection would reach around Rs 2 billion from NSCs and Pakistan Post. In this way, the directorate would contribute around Rs 2 billion in overall collection during current fiscal along with revenue generated from on-going enforcement action in cigarette, beverage and other sectors.
On the explicit directions of the FBR Chairman Mumtaz Haider Rizvi, the agency has started monitoring of NSCs and Pakistan Post following successful recovery of withholding tax from banking sector. The success story of the directorate of intelligence IR is based on professionalism as far as withholding audit is concerned. The co-operation of the Director General National Saving Organisation and Director Pakistan Post played a key role in recovering withholding tax from the NSCs and Pakistan Post.
Last month, the directorate of intelligence IR has conducted a review session to share the information about the status of the NSCs audit and the monitoring of withholding tax under section 151(1)(a) of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 was also extended to Pakistan Post. All regions of the field formations shared their information about the progress of recovery and experience during recovery of withholding taxes from the NSCs. It was decided that a uniform action plan should be enforced in the field formations for maximum recovery from the NSCs. As a result of collective action by the field formations, the directorate of intelligence IR has been able to show remarkable performance by collecting over Rs 1 billion during March-April (2012) by effective monitoring of withholding tax of the NSCs and Pakistan Post under section 151(1)(a) of the Ordinance 2001.
In the whole exercise, the FBR has not received any complaint from the staff of the NSCs and Pakistan Post. Similarly, the investors of the NSCs and the Pakistan Post have not made any compliant about on-going monitoring exercise of the agency. This showed that the agency has carried out the exercise in a professional manner without causing harassment to the staff as well as the investors in the saving schemes etc.
The monitoring of withholding tax exercise was not an easy task as there are around 370 branches of the NSCs and 83 GPOs of the Pakistan Post. The agency has conducted monitoring of nearly 453 units of the NSCs and Pakistan Post for recovery of withholding taxes. The exercise would be focused on deduction of withholding tax under section 151(1) (a) of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001. The directorate has found monitoring of the National Saving Centres result-oriented at national level to check/verify 'deduction and collection' of withholding taxes on profit earned through investment made in different schemes and saving accounts.