Islamabad: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has issued notices to over 200,000 high net-worth un-registered persons through third-party data utilisation.

According to the Revenue Division’s yearbook (2020-21) issued on Tuesday, the board has shared the efforts to enhance tax compliance.

In order to develop a 360-degree view of taxpayers, data sources such as banks, vehicles, and real estate transactions have been captured and a data bank has been developed.

Based on this data bank, notices to more than 200,000 high net-worth un-registered persons have been issued. Data has been obtained from DISCOs and gas companies for broadening of tax base.

More than 650,000 notices have been issued on the basis of data obtained from the DISCOs and in lieu of these notices 129,541 returns have been enforced so far.

The FBR has undertaken unprecedented enforcement measure to ensure filing of returns. Resultantly, the number of income tax return filers for TY2020 has crossed 3.1 million.

The FBR has launched “Maloomat” (a tax profiling system) on its web portal, containing data of 53 million citizens, giving access to the filers and non-filers to the information about their assets and bank accounts available with the FBR.

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The FBR is also pursuing sales tax harmonisation with the provincial revenue authorities, which includes common definition of goods and services, common minimum threshold, harmonised tax rates, single portal, and single sales tax return.

The initiative isexpected to complete in the medium term.

Withholding taxes remained the major contributor with 72 percent share in the total collection of income tax. The WHT collection during FY 2020-21 stood at Rs1,237.1 billion against Rs1,091.7 billion in 2019-20, indicating a growth of 13.3 percent.

Ten major components of withholding taxes, contributing around 85 percent to the total WHT collection are: contracts, imports, salary, telephone, dividends, bank interest, cash withdrawal, technical fee, electricity, and exports. With the exception of the WHT on technical fee and cash withdrawal, all other major items recorded positive growth. The WHT from salaries remained at the top, with 17.3 percent growth in collection, followed by dividends and telephone 15.6 percent each and electricity at 12.8 percent.

Another major contributor, the WHT from contracts also returned significant growth at 14.6 percent, the FBR added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021