ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has verified to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that over 4,000 candidates, who filed nomination papers for general elections -2013 have no National tax Number (NTN) and deposited not a single penny as 'tax' to the national kitty.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Tuesday that the FBR's Central Verification Cell has received around 9,000 cases from the ECP for verification of tax-related information declared in the nomination papers by the contesting candidates. More than 8000 cases have been duly processed and returned to the ECP. Over 1000 cases are in the pipeline and would be shortly verified for transmission to the ECP. It is astonishing that 50 percent of the verified cases have no NTN.
The FBR's Central Verification Cell has informed the ECP that over 4,000 cases have no NTN and have not filed any income tax returns. It is unbelievable that the preliminary analysis of contesting candidates regarding tax matters have detected non-compliance on such a massive scale. However, these contesting candidates being non-taxpayers are still upbeat to lead the country. Sources said that the declarations have been duly verified and communicated to the ECP for onward submission to the Returning Officers.
Data revealed that 50 percent of the contesting candidates, who wanted to be part of the National Assembly, have not even bothered to obtain the NTN from the FBR and want to become Parliamentarians, but with the mindset to evade taxes. National Assembly and Senate are the competent forums for the tax legislation, but till now 50 percent of the applicants taking part in polls seem to be in no hurry to become compliant taxpayers, sources said.
It is also unfortunate to know that basic requirement for obtaining NTN has not been fulfilled by 4,000 contenting candidates, reflecting the level of non-compliance in the country. This trend clearly reflects that the contesting candidates consider it an insult to pay taxes in Pakistan. It has been apprehended that if the same trend is observed during the verification process of the remaining contesting candidates, a large number of such persons might be out of the tax net.
Sources said that FBR's Central Verification Cell is working in three shifts for speedy verification of nomination papers filed by contesting candidates. Three shifts of the cell are working round-the-clock for verification of documents of the contesting candidates. On special instructions of FBR Chairman Ali Arshad Hakim, the said Cell is actively verifying papers for immediate submission to the ECP. As compared to other departments like NADRA and NAB etc, the verification process of the FBR is speedy and passing on timely information to the ECP for utilisation.