FBR plans to broaden tax base with help of Nadra

ISLAMABAD: With the help of NADRA, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is making plans to broaden the narrowed tax base as notices would be dispatched to identified tax dodgers, it is learnt.

Federal Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin on Monday visited the FBR’s headquarters and chaired a high-level meeting for the purpose of broadening the tax base. The number of return filers have reached around three million against the FBR estimates that the number of potential tax dodgers stood at around seven million.

“Different options have come under discussion. Only preliminary work is in hand. There are a lot of ideas but no concrete numbers worked out yet,” Special Assistant to PM on Finance and Revenues Dr Waqar Masood said when this scribe contacted him for comments on Monday night.

The FBR has obtained under the provision of law for arresting wilful defaulters with the approval of Parliament through the Finance Act 2021-22 but so far this law was not being used.

However, the sources said that some preparatory work was underway, especially on account of the Inland Revenue Service (IRS) wing of Intelligence and Investigation to identify biggest tax defaulters, who could be dealt under provisions of law allowing tax machinery to arrest tax defaulters, who preferred to evade multi million rupees tax.

“NADRA’s data can be utilised to trace out potential tax dodgers so its officials were also present in today’s meeting,” said one FBR official and added that firm up proposals would be presented before the finance minister soon then the broadening of tax base would be kick-started in all over the country.

The FBR wants to achieve an ambitious tax collection target of Rs 5,829 billion against a collection of Rs 4,732 billion for the last fiscal year, requiring a growth of around 24 percent. Without effective enforcement, the desired target cannot be materialised so the government has diverted its whole hearted attention towards broadening the tax base and installing Point of Sale (POS) software with maximum branded retailers during the current fiscal year.