FBR to seek asset details, tax paid by candidates from ECP

ISLAMABAD: After finding out 12,788 candidates contesting the upcoming general elections either as unregistered or non-filers out of the total 21,438 all over the country, the FBR is considering seeking details of declared assets and paid taxes from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) soon after July 25 elections for ascertaining big tax evaders.

However, it requires political will of the incoming government coming into power after winning the next general elections otherwise the scrutiny exercise will prove a futile exercise to bring potential taxpayers into the net.

“It will be just farce on part of scrutiny process if there will be no follow-up undertaken for expanding the already narrowed and shrunk tax base. The FBR intends to seek details of assets and taxes paid by the contesting candidates and will compare with its own database to ascertain discrepancies and generating tax demands for broadening the tax base,” official sources confirmed to The News here on Thursday.

During the scrutiny process, the FBR has verified whether the candidates filed their returns in the last three years and the exact amount paid by them during these three years.

The ECP has not shared annexure of declared assets filed by candidates publicly because the Returning Officers (ROs) have not yet forwarded all details to centralised system placed by the ECP.

The FBR sources said that around 60 percent candidates out of 21,438 were found non-registered or non-filers so it should not remain as just information collection exercise. Although, the scrutiny process could not prove as tool to bar alleged tax evaders for contesting elections but at least it should be used as tool to ensure expansion in the tax base.

“Soon after the elections, the FBR will officially approach the ECP for seeking declareddetails of all candidates and then it will be matched with the database of the FBR to ascertain those who will be found tax evaders,” said the official.

Pakistan’s narrowed tax base is bound to further shrink in this fiscal year in the aftermath of so-called economic reforms introduced by the previous PML-N led regime in shape of jacking up ceiling of taxable income and slashing down the tax rate from 30 to 15 percent, the incumbent Chairperson FBR Rukhsana Yasmeen had stated that it would cause exclusion of 0.5 million from taxpayers list.

The FBR has been found really hard to bring potential non-filers into tax net. In last fiscal year, the FBR has received only over 1.2 million returns despite this fact that the number of National Tax Number (NTN) stands at 3.7 million in all over the country. It clearly indicates that even NTN holders did not bother to file their tax returns.

“Without using data of ECP for expanding the tax base, it will be futile to ask such details through nomination papers so the FBR should utilise this information to expand its base by detecting big evaders,” concluded the sources.