FBR launches crackdown against 169 wealthy non-filers

[Men in Green]

Never trust FBR NAB and judiciary.

 

[Shahzaz ud din]

Govt to launch crackdown against non-tax filers next month
By
admin
-
April 2, 2019

April 2, 2019: Minister of State for Revenue, Hammad Azhar has said Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf government would launch a crackdown against non-tax filers next month.

Talking to a private news channel, he said the government has received information about forty to fifty hundred thousand non-filers in the country.

The Minister said the tax evaders will have to face action as the department concerned would check the non-filers across the country.

To another question, he said another operation regarding having fake accounts would also be launched to discourage such trend in the country.

Posted on: 2019-04-02T09:14:00+05:00
27144

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Slow down Sir. Think about the population demographics. We can try to see how many of the ~210 million souls living in Pakistan should be registered for Tax purposes as well as how many of them would be liable to pay taxes. I have below some figures from wiki (not the best source but for guestimate, good enough)
0–14 years 35.4% (male 35,475,647 / female 33,586,757)
15–64 years 60.4% (male 60,766,105 / female 56,886,961)
65 and over 4.2% (male 3,890,840 / female 4,325,538) (Jan. 2017)

So Lets say we are to exclude anyone under 14 (I would like this lower limit to be 18 but don't have data) and over 65 from the tax base. This will leave us with ~60% of the population which should register for tax filing.
210*60% = 126 million people

Now lets look at the demographics of these 126 million people to find out an approximate number of people who should be paying tax.
The total Labour force of Pakistan is about ~70 million and 5.9% is unemployed. This will leave us with around ~66 million employed people.
So these 66 million could be liable to pay taxes.
Lets look at the criteria for Tax paying. To make things simple I assume after the mini budget people pay on the following tax brackets:
0.00 - 1,200,000.00 No Tax
1,200,000.00 - 2,400,000.00 - 5%
2,400,000.00 - 4,800,000.00 - 10%
4,800,000.00 - Max - 15%
Lets look at the labour force which earns less than 1,200,000. I couldn't get the data for people who would fall under the No tax bracket but I believe the vast majority of those ~66 million would fall into this bracket.

Hopefully by now you will get the idea that it is easier said then done. Government and the populace both are to be blamed in this case. The aim should be to make life easier for the general populace and not the other way around. The literacy of Pakistan is also very low (~60%) which means even if people want to register they will have hard time. I don't have time right now otherwise I would've done a detailed analysis. I will just say look at the population demographics (age, earning, literacy). Correct the system (make it easy to file, no blackmailing etc).

My thoughts exactly 70-80 Million is a must for Tax filers , 66 million is a acceptable goal as well


This talk of we registered 1.0 Million , and we are so great talk is none sense

 

[Shahzaz ud din]

FBR selects 14,154 cases for audit
By
Staff Report
-
April 4, 2019
0
1608

• Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani, PTI MNA Arbab Amir Yaqoob and PPP MPA Ali Nawaz Khan Mahar also got selected for audit through electronic balloting

ISLAMABAD: Through electronic balloting, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Thursday selected 14,154 audit cases of income tax, sales tax and federal excise duty (FED) for the tax year 2018.

In a ceremony for risk-based selection of audit cases, the FBR selected 477,374 income taxpayers for balloting, out of which 10,982 or 2.3pc cases were selected. Similarly, out of 124,004 or 2.5pc sales tax cases, 3,116 cases were selected through balloting, whereas out of 725 cases of FED, the FBR selected 56 cases for audit.

Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar launched the audit programme by pressing the button to start random balloting for audit 2018.

According to sources, Senate Chairman Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, Senator Chaudhry Tanveer Khan, PTI MNA Arbab Amir Yaqoob, PPP MPA Ali Nawaz Khan Mahar, former GDA MNA Ahmad Gohar Khan Mahar, MQM MPA Hamiduz Zafar, former senator Saud Majeed and former religious minister Aminul Hasnat were also selected for audit under the new policy.

On the occasion, the FBR also launched its new website with simplified features and more facilitation for online taxpayers.

Addressing the ceremony, Hammad Azhar said unlike the previous exercise, the FBR had selected fewer cases for audit in order to ensure qualitative and cost-efficient procedures.

“Once the notices are issued to the people for audit, the tracking system would be utilized with the help of new technology and all the process would be completed within the given timeframe,” he remarked.

He said with respect to recovery of data of three to four million non-filers, a huge exercise was underway with the National Database Regulatory Authority and much of the data has already been received.

“We are going to launch an aggressive drive against such non-filers soon not only to expand the tax net but also to enhance the revenue collection,” he added.

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

On average $1b from each - not a far fetched call considering the Escobar style "private" security arrangements these folks employ - and, IK's remaining term would be like "as smooth as silk"!!!! Modi/BS(IAF)/RSS/Hindutva/Last-Afgan etc. have already been bagged!!! Finances are the remaining item!!! Lucky fellow...

 

[Shahzaz ud din]

Pakistan, IMF at odds over Rs5.4tr tax collection target
By Shahbaz Rana
Published: April 7, 2019
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The possibility of Chinese financial assistance expands Pakistan’s menu of choices, in comparison with the past when the IMF was the only option. PHOTO:FILE

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been unable to sort out differences over the fiscal policy because of the latter’s demand that the federal tax collection be increased to nearly 13% of the size of the country’s economy within a year.

Sources in the Ministry of Finance told The Express Tribune that if the government accepted the IMF demand, a tax collection target of around Rs5.4 trillion would have to be set for the fiscal year 2019-20.

Under the present circumstances and an extremely poor performance in the outgoing fiscal year, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) would be unable to collect more than Rs4.9 trillion in the next fiscal year starting from July.




The disagreement over the FBR’s collection target is also undermining a deal on the budget deficit target for the next fiscal year.

Based on very high tax collection assumptions, the IMF is inclined to give a tight budget deficit target.

For the fiscal year 2018-19, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had set a Rs4.4 trillion tax collection target for the FBR. However, looking at the board’s performance in the first nine months, it is unlikely to collect over Rs4 trillion, sources in the FBR told The Express Tribune.

The FBR fell short of the target by nearly Rs318 billion and could rake in only Rs2.68 trillion.

The Rs4 trillion tax collection target is equal to 10.6% of the GDP and to increase it to 13%, the FBR would have to generate an additional amount of Rs1.45 trillion. This would require a 36% growth rate, which is impossible to achieve, the FBR sources added.

The FBR has so far posted an average growth of 2% in revenue from July to March.

After taking into account the positive impact of the nominal GDP rate of nearly 12% (inflation plus the real GDP), the FBR would still need to take unprecedented measures to meet the IMF demand.

To achieve a target collection target of Rs5 trillion, the government would have to impose additional taxes of around Rs500 billion for the fiscal year 2019-20.

The sources said the new situation in the wake of massive revenue shortfall would be explained to the IMF during a staff-level visit expected in the third week of this month.

The IMF may eventually agree to a target of around Rs5 trillion, which will be equal to 12% of the next year’s GDP size.

Finance Minister Asad Umar said on Friday that the deal with the IMF was “almost done” and an agreement could be reached during his visit to Washington starting from Tuesday.

The government had hoped that the increase in inflation and exchange rate adjustments would have a positive impact on tax collection. However, it failed to achieve the desired results by the end of the ninth month of this fiscal year.

During November’s failed round of talks, the government had expected that the FBR would improve its collection this fiscal year and that would help in taking less additional revenue measures in 2019-20.

The sources said Pakistan was keen to increase the FBR’s tax-to-GDP ratio by 1.1% of the GDP in the next fiscal year, followed by 0.9% of the GDP in the fiscal year 2020-21. During the last fiscal year, the FBR’s tax-to-GDP ratio stood at 11.2%.

The next fiscal year would not be easy for the government as well as for the people. The government plans a crackdown against tax evasion, particularly in the real estate sector, under invoicing of imports and offshore taxation.

The general sales tax (GST) effective rate is around 7.25% against the standard rate of 17% because of various tax exemptions and special tax regimes. An integrated value-added tax system could improve the effective rate but that would also require a massive withdrawal of exemptions.

The finance minister would unveil the government’s five-year macroeconomic plan on Monday, but without releasing specific targets. Umar said last week that the macroeconomic targets could only be shared once an agreement is reached with the IMF.

The government’s five-year plan may touch some politically sensitive areas like tax collection from the agriculture sector and GST on provincial services.

To improve the meagre Rs2 billion tax collection from the farm sector, the federal government may ask the provinces to hand over this task to the Centre. The tax collected from each province as a result would not be part of the divisible pool and could be directly transferred to the respective province.

According to the proposed plan, there may be a merit in reverting back to the pre-18th Amendment arrangement on the collection of GST on services, where the provinces agreed that tax could be collected by the federal government but the revenue would be transferred directly to the province from where it originated.

However, Sindh is likely to oppose the move.

The government may also announce the harmonisation of the tax code and integrate tax processes through digitisation and process automation.

The sources said the government planned to enact a law to ensure that no tax exemption was allowed through a notification without an independent estimate of its cost by the tax department as well as the ministry concerned. The cost would be made public before the exemption is notified.

The government would also review all existing exemptions to eliminate as many as possible. It would ensure that all exemptions, existing or newly proposed, had a sunset clause.

The government is likely to publish a list of all government-owned enterprises availing exemptions/concessions in any way along with the quantification of the tax expenditure. The federal government is also considering simplifying tariff rates.

 

[TheNoob]

Why is FBR alive all of the sudden?
Someone got a danda or something?