Only the chairman and board members will be granted access to banking data. PHOTO: AFP
After apparently having mulled over the matter for several days, the FBR has an answer: only its chairman and board members will be granted access to banking data. Is that really the solution to this issue? Granting the power to access data to the FBR where there is massive scope for the data to be misused, while not giving the power to the NADRA data analysts, who are actually creating the algorithm designed to track down tax evaders and estimate their tax liabilities? This so-called solution only serves to exacerbate the impression that the FBR does not really want the data to go after tax evaders, but simply to use it to allow corrupt officials to blackmail people with substantial sums of money.
The theory behind the need for the bank account data being made accessible to the FBR was to allow it to complete the algorithm it is trying to construct that would not only identify potential tax evaders, but also estimate accurately how much they should be paying in taxes. It is an attempt to use Big Data the right way. The algorithm, however, is not being constructed by the FBR. It is being constructed by NADRA, an institution that has a much better track record of handling people’s personal data and, therefore, has a much better public profile. If the finance minister is serious about catching tax evaders, he would do well to hand over the data to NADRA, which the public trusts, and not the FBR, where this information can be misused.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 27th, 2013.
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What up with you ET? Listen up man, simple economics, "Nobody ever pays more bribe than they rightfully owe" :-) In a little more detail: If a guys owes one million, he will never pay a rupee over one million as bribe. Point to learn: The handing over of data to FBR war is not a common man's war.... Its war of rich to negotiate rate of bribe over their stack of wealth. A suggestion: FBR can begin access to data of only those account holders who are availing financing facilities (Loans) from banks. To avail loans from banks, companies have to show profits and turnover in account. FBR can then match those account statements, financial staments submitted to banks and match it with the taxes that those people pay. How about that?
It all came down to one person who was elected and is about to take away the financial liberty from the people. Even in the US , the Internal Revenue Service is in trouble with the congress because of their heavy handedness. Pakistanis on the other hand don't have that kind of rights the US citizens enjoy and these powers granted to the FBR is prelude to abuse. By the way how could the finance minister grant powers to the FBR on his whims, I thought in democratic set up the legislators are to legislate and dispense powers to the bureaucracy or State Agencies like FBR. Somehow things just remain the same no matter who comes in to occupy the power corridors.