FBR launches tax profiling portal

ISLAMABAD: The government has launched two web portals containing the assets data of around 53 million people, which they can access to learn what data the government possesses about them and make corrections if required.

This was stated by State Minister for Revenue Hammad Azhar and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Shabbar Zaidi during a news conference on Friday. Top officials from the FBR and National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) were also present on the occasion.

Azhar congratulated the FBR for being successful in the data integration process, which he said the past governments had failed despite tall claims during the past decade. He said it was initial data and would be enriched with the passage of time, adding that currently the data was based on property, bank accounts, utility bills, and travels, while the FBR had also done “plaza mapping” to data collection.

Zaidi, however clarified this information would not be the base for any tax assessment as its main objective was to inform the people what information of theirs was available with the government so they may correct their information.

“The Information has nothing to do with taxability,” he clarified. The chairman said the portal would be helpful for people as they might know what information was available with the government and could correct their return filing data if incorrect.

Secondly, he asserted, it had been made fully secure and no other person can access information, adding that if needed, the security could be further enhanced. The ultimate objective of the portals is to bridge the gap and provide information to the people at their doorsteps, he added.

The portals are foolproof and only genuine individual could access his/her personal asset information as the questions to be generated by the system would be based on the personal information of the individual, he added.

He said the information available on both the portals — one created by Nadra and another by the FBR itself — could be obtained by following the login process and after replying to some system generated questions.

The Nadra portal could be accessed by paying fees of Rs500, and the FBR portal could be accessed by sending individual CNIC No to 9966, after which a system based code would be generated and sent on the mobile phone of the user which could be utilised for accessing the FBR portal.

Zaidi said the FBR website had been made simple and was developed keeping in mind the low literacy rate. In addition, the portal is centralised to reduce human intervention and ensure that nobody could tamper with it or misuse it.

Information of both filers and non-filers would be available on portals. To a question, he said the last date of Assets Declaration Scheme would not be extended as Pakistan was going to enter into International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, the board of which is scheduled to meet on July 3 to consider three year Extended Fund Facility Programme.

To another question, the chairman said FBR did not write letters to bank account holders having over Rs500,000 amount in their accounts and clarified the banks on their own had written letter to trace out Benami Accounts.