Says tax collection system being automated to increase revenue
ISLAMABAD
Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has said that the government is taking concrete measures to automate the tax collection system to increase the revenue, advising the tax-evaders to mend their ways instead its too late.
Addressing the launching ceremony of the Sales Tax Directory by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Friday, the finance minister said with the help of technology and available data, the FBR will approach the people to file their tax returns without issuing notices in coming weeks.
He advised the potential tax-evaders to initiate paying taxes before the government reaches them within a couple of months with documentary evidence of their assets.”I assure the nation that change is taking place, we are making use of technology and will reach all potential non-taxpayers,” he said. He added that the government is already possessing data of millions of taxpayers.
He said the authorities would reach the tax evaders and provide them with tax returns, with an opportunity to prove it wrong by consulting a panel of auditors or pay the due taxes. “We will not harass, we will tell them what they possess. If they don’t pay, then the law would take its own course,” he added.
The finance minister said that the FBR is using technology to simplify the system. He said that a single tax portal of the FBR will enable taxpayers to file sales tax returns of a single month instead of multiple returns.
The finance minister congratulated the federal and provincial revenue divisions for coming on a single platform and making payment of revenues easy for taxpayers.
He said that since sales tax on goods is a federal domain and sales tax on services is coming under provinces, hence it is creating hardships for taxpayers. Now, under the single platform, the taxpayers would be facilitated, adding that in the previous system, if a company was operating in all the provinces, it had to deal with around seven agencies for filing returns, with chances of errors.
However, now they would be required to file a single tax under the new system, he further said. He said that the government is also working on further harmonisation of the system to facilitate taxpayers and expressed the hope that ease in the tax deposit system would help enhance revenues.
The minister said that three was no other way, if the country had to progress and prosper, there is a need to enhance revenue collection. He cited an example of Germany where he said there was no representation without taxation. He lamented that there were only 3 million taxpayers out of 220 million in the country.
He said that out of around Rs18 trillion retail sales, only Rs3 to Rs4 trillion were captured and Rs14 million sales are still missing from the tax system.
