The government has chalked out its strategy for launching crackdown against potential evaders. This would be done on the basis of some criteria for selection of cases out of transactions made on account of properties etc in last few years.
The FBR chairman also visited the Finance Ministry on Friday to brief Asad Umer on mechanism to control tax aversion in the country and proposed action against the high net worth tax-evaders.
Tax authorities have also called a Chief Commissioner Conference next week to review the overall revenue collection performance during July-September 2018-19. The Chief Commissioner Conference is also expected to be attended by the finance minister.
Asad Umar was scheduled to visit the FBR headquarters on September 27 but his visit was postponed because of federal cabinet meeting. The FBR has obtained authentic information against potential tax dodgers and now formal crackdown will be launched to make them example for other evaders.
According to outlined eight priorities envisaged by the PTI-led government, the FBR has made comprehensive plan and strategy to highlight gaps between the actual tax collection and potential. The FBR's Member Inland Revenue (Operation) and Member Strategic Planning, Reforms & Statistics (SPR&S) have been assigned to present detailed strategy to propose measures for increasing collection up to the desired potential of the country. The second agenda item will be regarding introduction of reforms into FBR for which Member SPR&S is assigned to devise a strategy and present before the minister for finance for getting green signal on this much needed plan. The third main agenda item will be deployment of technology and how the FBR could achieve greater transparency and FBR's Member IT will brief the minister about the proposed plan to expand the narrowed tax base.
Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan on Friday sought technical support and assistance for further improving the mechanism from Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) during a meeting with the Chairman PITB Dr Umar Saif.
Dr Umar Saif said that the introduction of enhanced ICT intervention in the existing system would enable the FBR to analyze and identify the potential buyers as well as it would broaden the tax base and facilitate the citizens to file their tax returns in more simple and easiest way by further improving the mechanism.
In this regard both sides have dedicated teams of professionals to complete the task in a speedy manner and in the shortest span of time. The chairman FBR appreciated the work done by PITB under the leadership of Dr Umar Saif. He was of the view that the technical support to be extended by the PITB would help manifold in overcoming the challenges being faced by FBR in various domains The fourth desired agenda is about simplification of tax returns for this year and fifth will be regarding stuck-up refunds of exporters creating liquidity crunch for exporters.
The sixth point of PTI strategy is about crackdown on high net worth tax evaders and seventh on problems being faced by the FBR employees. The last desired agenda of reforming the FBR is about achievement of assigned revenue collection target for the fiscal year 2018-19.