Skip to main content

Focus is ‘top 5pc’, says FBR chairman as govt aims to curb tax evasion

Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial on Thursday said that the purpose of carrying out end-to-end digitisation of the tax process was to bring the top five per cent of the wealthy into the tax net.

His comments came a day after the government announced its plan to increase the tax-to-GDP ratio from the current 10 per cent to 13.5pc within the next three years, stressing that the proposed amendments to tax laws would improve tax collection and compliance in the country.

During a press conference today, the FBR chairman, along with the finance minister and minister of state for finance and revenue, said, “The top five per cent of people — who should be in the system — are 2.7 million plus 0.6.

“That means 3.3m people who fall in the top five pc, and whose average income is 4.8 billion, fall into the taxable category,” he stated, adding that the average income of the top one pc was higher than this.

“And our country is very poor — it’s not very rich — even if we do not tax anybody in the the 95pc, the maximum income level liability we lose is less than 140bn,” he elaborated.

“So we are trying to target those people who spend money — who have money to spend.”

He further added that the FBR was receiving support from institutions, such as Nadra, for data to target.

Digitalisation of FBR aimed at enhancing transparency: finance minister

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said that FBR’s digitalisation and ending human intervention was important to decrease corruption and harassment in the tax authority, state-owned Radio Pakistan reported.

“So that we can bring effective compliance in the tax regime and tax laws we talk about, and the taxes can be paid according to income and consumption levels,” he said.

Aurangzeb also said taxation reforms played a key role in fiscal stability, adding that the country’s current tax-to-GDP ratio was currently languishing between 9 to 10pc, and it had to be brought up to to the target of 13.5pc in the next three years.

Furthermore, he stated that FBR’s digitilsation was now in the “executive phase” after being approved under the current administration of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

“Firstly, the focus has been to modernise FBR’s external systems and bring it towards data analytics so we can tackle tax evasion,” he said. “So that honest tax payers are not burdened.”

Secondly, Aurangzeb also highlighted that they were also working on “better integration in terms of deeper tax value chain linkages and ultimately tax gaps” of key economic sectors such as sugar, cement and textile.

“We can cover them better through data analytics so that the common man does not have undue pressure,” he added.

Moreover, Minister of state for Finance and Revenue Ali Pervez Malik echoed the same sentiments.

He said the government was trying to “institutionalise” the system, underscoring the need for increasing revenue and tax sources so it did not burden the common man.



from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/d4TYLvk
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Explainer: Iran’s economy faces rocky road amid rising prices, falling currency

Iran’s economy is going through one of its most difficult periods in years, fueled by sanctions, high inflation, and a significant drop in the value of the national currency, the rial. These pressures have had a direct impact on living standards and have also fueled recent protests. The protests began on Dec. 28 in commercial hubs in the capital Tehran, when shopkeepers, merchants, and small business owners staged strikes and demonstrations to protest soaring inflation, the collapsing rial, and deteriorating economic conditions, and have since grown into nationwide anti-government expressions of discontent involving workers, students, and others across multiple cities. The Iranian president said Sunday that his government is determined to address Iran’s economic problems amid the protests. Masoud Pezeshkian said the government admits to “shortcomings and problems” and is working hard to alleviate the people’s concerns, especially on the economy. Currency collapse at the centre of c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mitchell Starc surpasses Wasim Akram as most prolific left-arm pacer in Test history

Australian veteran Mitchell Starc became the most prolific left-arm paceman in Test history on Thursday, surpassing Pakistan great Wasim Akram. The 35-year-old bagged England’s Harry Brook at the Gabba in Brisbane on day one of the day-night second Ashes Test for his 415th wicket since his debut at the same ground 14 years ago. It moved him past Wasim, widely recognised as the greatest left-arm bowler the sport has seen. Wasim played 104 Tests for his 414 wickets with Starc reaching the milestone in his 102nd, helped by a career-best 7-58 in the first innings of the opening Ashes Test at Perth. Starc is now 16th on the all-time wicket-taker list and could move above both India’s Harbhajan Singh (417) and South Africa’s Shaun Pollock (421) in the current pink-ball Test. After that he will have New Zealand’s Richard Hadlee (431) in his sights. from Dawn - Home https://ift.tt/xclHiX2
Post a Comment
Read more

Global reaction to potential Israel-Hezbollah ‘spiral of violence’

World leaders on Tuesday sounded the alarm over fears of a wider conflict after Lebanon suffered its deadliest day in two decades in Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds. After nearly a year of cross-border fire since the Gaza offensive erupted, Israeli bombardment on Monday killed 558 people in Lebanon, including 50 children, according to the country’s health ministry. The toll — the highest since Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah went to war in mid-2006 — raised fears of an all-out conflict engulfing the Middle East. ‘Tens of thousands’ flee: UN UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “gravely alarmed by the escalating situation… and the large number of civilian casualties, including children and women,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “Tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes yesterday and overnight, and the numbers continue to grow,” United Nations refugee agency spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh said in Geneva. ‘Spiral of violence’: US Israel’s clo...
Post a Comment
Read more