The brief observations of Salman Shah and Waheed Butt point towards some of the glaring deficiencies of VTCS which has been launched by the present government with a great fanfare with a view to broadening the tax base and increasing revenues of the federal government. Also, the scheme was believed to have been devised after a great deal of deliberations over a few months in order to make it fully transparent, non-discriminatory and perfect so that nobody could question its credibility. However, the questions raised by the two gentlemen at our programme "Paisa Bolta Hai" are very valid. VTCS, of course, is discriminatory in nature and especially frustrating for the genuine taxpayers who have been paying high rate of taxes over the years. The fact that non-taxpayers could now whiten their money by paying a very nominal tax rate and would also be exempted from annual audit for the next three years would strengthen the perception that dishonesty pays while the honest taxpayers suffer due to the announcement of amnesty schemes announced after every few years. The present VTCS could also promote undocumented culture and accelerate tax evasion as the potential taxpayers are not properly punished for non-payment but offered amnesty schemes on highly concessional terms again and again. In our view, it is high time to increase the efficiency of FBR and weed out corrupt elements from the system so that the same exercise is not repeated after every few years for the chagrin of honest taxpayers. It boggles one's mind that while there are over 3,660,000 registered taxpayers, only about 0.9 million are tax filers out of whom 0.2 million pay no taxes. The number of taxpayers could be much larger if the FBR would go after persons owning large properties in cities, frequently travel by air and, ride luxury vehicles. Such persons should be forced to come into the tax net. Obviously, if the FBR could enhance its efficiency through hard work, due diligence and honesty of purpose, there would be no need to offer such schemes. It is also strange to see that the scope of the present scheme is very limited and only applicable to traders. Why the coverage of the scheme has been confined to a particular section of people is a question which begs a plausible answer.
The brief observations of Salman Shah and Waheed Butt point towards some of the glaring deficiencies of VTCS which has been launched by the present government with a great fanfare with a view to broadening the tax base and increasing revenues of the federal government. Also, the scheme was believed to have been devised after a great deal of deliberations over a few months in order to make it fully transparent, non-discriminatory and perfect so that nobody could question its credibility. However, the questions raised by the two gentlemen at our programme "Paisa Bolta Hai" are very valid. VTCS, of course, is discriminatory in nature and especially frustrating for the genuine taxpayers who have been paying high rate of taxes over the years. The fact that non-taxpayers could now whiten their money by paying a very nominal tax rate and would also be exempted from annual audit for the next three years would strengthen the perception that dishonesty pays while the honest taxpayers suffer due to the announcement of amnesty schemes announced after every few years. The present VTCS could also promote undocumented culture and accelerate tax evasion as the potential taxpayers are not properly punished for non-payment but offered amnesty schemes on highly concessional terms again and again. In our view, it is high time to increase the efficiency of FBR and weed out corrupt elements from the system so that the same exercise is not repeated after every few years for the chagrin of honest taxpayers. It boggles one's mind that while there are over 3,660,000 registered taxpayers, only about 0.9 million are tax filers out of whom 0.2 million pay no taxes. The number of taxpayers could be much larger if the FBR would go after persons owning large properties in cities, frequently travel by air and, ride luxury vehicles. Such persons should be forced to come into the tax net. Obviously, if the FBR could enhance its efficiency through hard work, due diligence and honesty of purpose, there would be no need to offer such schemes. It is also strange to see that the scope of the present scheme is very limited and only applicable to traders. Why the coverage of the scheme has been confined to a particular section of people is a question which begs a plausible answer.