Accountholders information to be made part of confidential database: FBR chief

Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Ansar Javed Thursday said bank accountholders information would be made part of the FBR confidential database and to be used for broadening the tax base.
On the conclusion of the post-budget press conference here, Ansar Javed said that the government has amended the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 and inserted section 165A, whereby banks would now be bound by law to provide information including online access to bank's central database containing details of its accountholders' and all transactions made by the to the tax authorities.
He said that similar kind of power has also been vested in tax authorities of other countries. He referred to the OECD countries where tax administrations have the same powers to access banks database. The information would be utilised for profiling of the potential taxpayers with the help of third party database. By end December 2013, around 500,000 profiles would be finalised which would be used for broadening the tax-base. "The whole idea is to broaden the tax-base no the basis of accountholders information available with the banks", he said.
To a query, he said that the FBR needs Rs 322 billion to meet the revised target by the end of June 2013 as compared to Rs 284 billion collected in the corresponding period of last fiscal. He was confident that the FBR will touch the figure of Rs 2000 billion by the end of current fiscal year. To another question, he said that the slabs of the federal excise duty on cigarette have not been revised on the basis of any FED structure submitted by the multinational companies.
The FBR has done its own working during the budget preparation exercise and finalised the revised FED slabs on cigarettes. When asked why the FED slabs prepared by a multinational company were incorporated in the Ordinance and later in the Finance Bill, he said that the multinational companies were stakeholders, but the slabs have been drafted by the FBR.