The exercise of broadening of tax base by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is widely being disparaged by the registered persons, Business Recorder learnt on Saturday. The complaints received by this paper revealed that the field formation of FBR is issuing letters even to the genuine taxpayers to verify their NTN status and CNIC.
It further termed such practice as harassment for the taxpayers and added that the same was creating negative impact on the business community. When contacted, Malik Abbas Samad, Chief Commissioner RTO-I, dispelled the impression that the department is indiscriminately issuing verification letters to all registered persons, saying notices are issued, if any discrepancy was found in taxpayers' profile.
He said the board is tracking potential taxpayers through Nadra records and the letters were mostly being issued to those potential taxpayers. Besides that the department has also initiated 'Mapping Exercise' to recompile its own data in accordance with Nadra records and if any discrepancy was detected in existing taxpayers' profile, they would also been issued notice to verify their NTN and CNIC status, he maintained.
Replying to a question, he said after experiencing strong resentments from business community especially shopkeepers in past exercises, the department has now taken market representatives on board to conduct survey for broadening of tax base. Moreover, he said the department had so far received phenomenal response from Defence markets but the shopkeepers of Saddar are reluctant to oblige the tax officers.