Prime Minister Imran Khan Tuesday directed the authorities concerned to expose tax evaders and defaulters before public through indiscriminate action, besides ensuring appropriate proceedings against corrupt elements in the revenue and tax departments who had been involved in facilitating the tax evasion.
Chairing a meeting over government’s steps for revenue generation, the prime minister also directed for facilitating the regular taxpayers instead of causing harassment to them.
During the meeting, the prime minister observed that tax evaders are the enemies of the country and nation and that they do not deserve any kind of leniency.
The FBR chairman briefed the meeting about steps taken for collection of taxes, broadening of the tax net base, and recovery of taxes from defaulters. He said a total of 6,000 cases of high net worth persons had been under consideration in which a total of Rs 2 billion income was expected, out of which Rs 1.3 billion have been recovered so far. A sum of more than Rs 1.5 billion has been recovered in 66 cases in which information collection and investigation process is underway, he added.
Imran says tax evaders are enemies of the country and deserve no leniency
In the offshore assets cases, Jehanzeb said more than Rs 6 billion outstanding taxes have been recovered whereas under Section 214-e, Rs 1.573 billion recoveries have been made.
The FBR chairman informed that mapping of about 2,000 plazas has been completed, whereas for the collection of recoverable taxes, automated tax collection system have been installed at more than 2,500 points of sale. The FBR expects to get Rs 24.818 billion under the latest measures and out of which an amount of 11.882 billion rupees has been received so far, he said.
The premier directed for utilisation of the latest mechanism for recoverable taxes so as to bring non-tax payers under the tax net, besides providing facilities for the regular tax payers.
The meeting was attended by Minister for Finance Asad Umar, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Caudhry, Minister of State for Revenue Hamad Azhar, PM’s spokesperson Nadeem Afzal Chan, Special Assistant to PM Iftikhar Durrani, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue Jehanzeb Khan and other officials.
Published in Daily Times, February 20th 2019.
