Tax evasion : FBR to serve notices to 300 lawmakers

FBR will ask the non-filers to deposit a penalty of Rs5,000 and file the tax returns within the stipulated time.


Shahbaz Rana December 12, 2012

ISLAMABAD:


The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to serve notices to 300 parliamentarians, including federal ministers, for not filing income tax returns, as revealed in a first-of-its-kind report.


FBR Chairman Ali Arshad Hakeem said the FBR was already in the process of sending notices to over 188,000 people identified as tax evaders, which also included parliamentarians. He added that tax officials would treat the report, titled Representation without Taxation, as an additional source of information in this regard.

According to the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, anyone whose annual income is Rs500,000 or above is liable to file income tax returns, irrespective of the source of income.

Another official said that the FBR would ask the non-filers to deposit a penalty of Rs5,000 and file the tax returns within the stipulated time.

While commenting on the report, he said as far as the data of non-filers is concerned, there was no mismatch between the information given in the report and the FBR’s data but added that in many cases the information regarding tax paid by the parliamentarians was not accurate.

For instance, according to the report, Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed paid Rs82 in income taxes but the FBR’s data was showing the amount over Rs500, he said.

The report affirms the deep-held belief that the political class is not only the biggest hurdle in broadening an extremely narrow tax base but also one that hates to pay taxes.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2012.

COMMENTS (17)

Shahid Bashir | 11 years ago | Reply

Look at the issue from another angle. Why has the confedential information about the Taxpayers or Non-taxpayers been released to the media?. PRAL should not be ignored and be held responsible for the same. There are some corrupt elements in PRAL who passed on the confedential information to the media

Socko | 11 years ago | Reply

@Syed THe same logic applies to politicians as well.. They also get their salary with tax deducted at source.. The problem is not whether they pay or not, it is whether they file the returns, to declare whether they have any other source of income other than the salary.. If yes, they need to pay taxes... So, even chief justice may have any other source of income other than salary, so it is necessary to file taxes, regardless of their tax deducted at source...

I suggest you find out the facts before judging

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