Observer Report Islamabad
Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has taken a very strong exception to an Editorial captioned “Paying Taxes” published in an English daily on 10th November, 2021 which is, indeed, malicious in intent and suspicious in content.
The said piece has termed used hackneyed jargon which include ‘sloppy tax regime’, ‘an army of tax collector working personal financial gains’ and those are ‘reluctant to use technology’ and the likely ‘resistance from tax collectors’ to the reform agenda at hand and the resultant failure of FBR in collecting sufficient revenues.
It also talked about ‘the nexus between the wealthy and tax collectors’. All these accusations are far from facts on the ground and seem to be part of a well-orchestrated campaign aimed to malign FBR.
As a matter of fact, the commendable performance of FBR in the previous Financial Year 2020-21 and first four months of current Financial Year 2021-22 has been widely appreciated at all levels and by the Prime Minister himself on more occasions than one.
The Revenue Target for F.Y 2020-21 has not only been achieved but also surpassed by Rs.54 billion by collecting Rs. 4,745 billion against assigned target of Rs. 4,691 billion.
Likewise, continuing the growth momentum, the revenue targets for the first four month of current financial year has been surpassed by Rs.233 billion with year to year growth of 37% by collecting Rs. 1,840 billion against assigned target of Rs. 1,607 billion.
Income Tax Returns for tax year 2021 has crossed 2.8 million as on 1st November, 2021 with tax paid with returns stood at Rs.52 billion as against 1.8 Million returns and 29.6 Billion tax paid with returns on 8th December, 2020, the closing date, last year.
Contrary to the claims made in the caption editorial, FBR is vigorously introducing automation and digitization not only to increase the much-needed revenue but also to ensure transparency, efficiency and facilitation in the tax system.
With its focus on ensuring ease of doing business, FBR is all set to digitize and automate the processes involved in tax collection in order to minimize human interaction with taxpayers and thereby ensuring transparency in the system.
The recent launch of Track and Trace System to digitally monitor important sectors like Tobacco, Fertilizers, Sugar, Beverages, and Cement from manufacturers to the end users, is yet another milestone achieved by FBR.
Furthermore, Point of Sales System (POS) introduced by FBR is aimed at ensuring real time monitoring of actual sales of Tier-one retailers to plug revenue leakages and thus increase the revenue collection, significantly.
Over 14,000 point-of-sale terminals have already been integrated with real time reporting system of FBR.
In collaboration with NADRA, plans are also afoot to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Mathematical Modelling (MM) in order to ascertain real income and thus determine actual tax liability.
