ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is ready to share the tax payment data of the top corporate and individual taxpayers of Pakistan after obtaining approval of the Federal Cabinet for issuing the tax directory.
Senior FBR officials said that the government’s permission is needed as per the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 for disclosing the data of the corporate taxpayers as well as individuals under the tax directory.
The FBR requires prior permission of the federal cabinet for disclosing the details of tax payments as per the tax directory.
Sources told Business Recorder that the Tax Directory requires approval of the federal cabinet before its publication and release to the general public. The Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, and income tax rules do not specify any deadline for the launch of the directory. It is the discretion of the government to issue it whenever it deems appropriate.
The FBR has yet not released the data of the top taxpayers including companies and individuals since the tax year 2018.
The FBR has released the data of the top taxpayers in 2019 pertaining to the tax payments made for the tax year 2018. Since tax year 2018, the FBR has not released the tax directories for the corporate and individual taxpayers for 2019 and onwards.
The FBR has issued the Parliamentarians Tax Directory (Tax Year 2019) in 2022, but no tax directories for corporate taxpayers were issued for this period. Tax directories for the top taxpayers within the category of individuals are not issued since 2019.
Under the last tax directory issued for tax year 2018, the banking and petroleum sectors remained on the top among leading taxpaying companies for the Tax Year 2018. Among other top taxpaying sectors/industries were telecom, auto, pharmaceutical, food, fertilizer, power, and cement.
In the past, during the meeting of Senate Committee on Rules of Procedure and Privileges which was held at the Parliament House, Senator Muhammad Tahir Bizenjo had drawn the attention of the committee towards the fact that Parliamentarian’s Tax Directory for the Tax Year 2019 was published by the FBR in the year 2022 with a three years’ delay, which is astonishing.
Member (IT) FBR admitted that the diary has been published with delay of two years which should have actually been published in the year 2020 but the delay was caused due to the change of government.
As far as the query of inclusion of names of the persons who were not even Parliamentarians in the year 2019 is concerned, he had informed the committee that with the approval of the Federal Cabinet the Directory was published and the names of the senators were taken from the official website of the Senate. The chairman Committee had informed that the list of Senators on the website of Senate was of 2021.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022