Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is going to issue notices to the unregistered persons having commercial and industrial meters of gas and power across the country for broadening of tax base. According to sources, the Broadening of Tax Base (BTB) Zone in Karachi on FBR directives obtained the complete details of persons having commercial and industrial meters of gas and power in the city.
Replying to a question, sources said that the BTB Zone Karachi after scrutinising the data of SSGC and K-Electric with FBR database identified over 97,000 unregistered persons having commercial gas connection and over 450 persons having industrial gas connections.
Furthermore, they said that over 23 thousands persons having KE''s commercial and industrial meters were not enrolled in sales tax. They said that at the moment, the tax department was in a process of constituting survey teams and also sent letters to the utilities, asking for the nomination of its field officers in order to facilitate FBR''s survey teams in finding these unregistered commercial and industrial gas and power connections across the city.
Moreover, they said that these survey teams along with the field officials of both utilities would visit the business premises where these unregistered commercial and industrial meters of gas and power are installed and issue notice after assessment of business volume.
They also dispelled the impression of issuing notices in bulk, saying that FBR was not in favour of issuing notices in bulk as it always created chaos and uncertain situation for both department and the taxpayers. Therefore, it is for sure that notices will only be issued to the potential taxpayers; they said and hoped that exercise for broadening of tax base would be kicked off in couple of days.