FBR chief lists down tax collection woes

Laments lack of funds as reason behind financial crunch.

MULTAN:

Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Tariq Bajwa has said that the government is facing a lack of funds for its tasks because of the limited number of taxpayers and the financial crunch faced by the country.

Ha said this while addressing a ceremony of tax members association in Multan. Bajwa added that only war-torn countries like Rwanda, Afghanistan and Congo have fewer taxpayers than Pakistan.

“The only possible solution is that people realise and understand the need to pay tax responsibly for the progress of the country.”

He said that it was for this reason that the FBR has started a self-assessment scheme to analyse tax payments itself.

“If people are eager to earn profit, then they must understand the essential role of paying taxes.”

He requested all tax bar associations in the country to convince people that they pay tax for the progress of the country.

“We have tried to mitigate the obstacles of collecting taxes and have made this process easy for people.”

He said that the government will give back extra sales taxes of the textile sector before September 30, which is more than Rs14 billion.

“There was no sales tax refund two years ago but now we have not only introduced it but made it effective on a fast-track basis.”

Bajwa lamented that the reason for taking dictations from the International Monetary Fund is that the country collects the least amount of tax.

He said that there are minimum five million taxpayers in the country and we are increasing efforts to increase our tax net to minimum three million taxpayers.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2014.

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