FBR to launch biometric verification for tax registration from July 1

KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to launch biometric verification of taxpayers’ registration from July 1 to avoid identity theft and tax frauds, a senior official said on Friday.
Raana Ahmed, Member (IT), FBR, while talking to The News said that all the arrangements have been finalised as required gadgets have been supplied to all the regional tax offices across the country.
She said other authorities, including National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) and the Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) have been taken on board for verification process and data sharing.
“Nadra will provide online verification of thumb impression of a person and his CNIC,” she said, adding that for this purpose National Database Registration Authority would cost Rs55 to Federal Board of Revenue, but it would be free of cost for the taxpayers.
The Member IT said that the basic purpose of introducing the biometric verification was to avoid delay in registration process. The other purpose is to prevent cases of identity theft causing major sales tax frauds.
She explained that in many tax fraud cases it was detected that the culprits got registration on someone else’s Computerised National Identity Card.“In the biometric registration the person will be physically present before the tax authorities to get registered,” she added.
The Federal Board of Revenue is launching the verification for new taxpayers. However, those already registered can also get registered themselves with the new system.Raana, who is also CEO of the Pakistan Revenue Automation Private Limited (PRAL), said that a new online system has also been introduced for income tax registration, under which the taxpayers need not to visit the tax office.
These changes have been introduced through the IRIS system, which was aimed to reduce risk factors and revenue losses, besides providing tax facilitation to taxpayers.A day ago, the Member IT introduced the new Registration Module of IRIS for registration for the income tax and sales tax at an event organised by the Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA).
She highlighted that the rationale behind the new module was that the old system has become non-functional and the applications for new registration and change in particulars has become cumbersome, difficult and time consuming.This new registration will be on the basis of real time on internet, without human intervention and there will be no lengthy correspondence.