Launches National Sales Tax Directory
Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Friday urged the unregistered potential taxpayers in the country to start paying taxes before “we reach you” with details of their assets and the amount of tax they were liable to pay in a couple of months.
Addressing the launching ceremony of National Sales Tax Directory by the Federal Board of Revenue, the minister regretted that just around three million tax returns were filed in a country that had a population of 220m.
“This is not right,” he said, adding that “I assure you this will start changing.”
Tarin said the government would now use technology to reach all persons liable to pay taxes. “I am giving this good news to unregistered taxpayers that we will reach them in the coming few weeks and we will tell them what’s their income and how much tax they have to pay,” he added.
He said the government would no longer have to issue notices for tax collection as it had collected data of “millions of taxpayers”.
“We will go to them [unregistered taxpayers] with data and provide them with [the details of] their tax returns. We will connect them with a panel of auditors from the private sector for consultation if they believe there is some error [in the details provided to them],” the minister explained, warning that if a person still wouldn’t pay taxes, “the law will take its own course”. “As I had promised earlier, there will be no harassment [for tax collection],” he added. The minister said he was giving this “good news as the government has almost reached them [unregistered taxpayers], and it now only needs to turn on the switch”.
“So it is my request to start paying taxes before we reach you,” .
