The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue was informed on Wednesday that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is preparing a plan to collect income tax from TikTok content creators.
During the committee’s meeting, Senator Faisal Vawda claimed that the FBR is finalizing a plan to tax income earned by TikTokers. He said that the largest share of revenue is expected to come from Punjab, and the tax authority should begin enforcement there first.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that a team of 40 investigators from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has started scouring Instagram, TikTok and YouTube posts this week, to match influencers, celebrities, realtors and businesspeople with disproportionate filings.
“It’s open-source – their Instagram accounts are a public declaration,” one senior FBR official said, adding tax evasion cases can be opened up in a matter of hours.
Officials said that a lavish wedding, with a price tag of nearly Rs 248 million ($878,000), became evidence for them where nearly $283,000 spent on diamond and gold sets and $124,000 on bridal outfits by leading South Asian designers. Guests entered through a hallway of floral arches as drones lit up the sky, before sitting down to multi-course meals prepared for 400 people.
They said that the Lifestyle Monitoring Cell has been formed to address Pakistan’s chronic inability to meet revenue collection targets, and to help meet tougher goals set in this year’s International Monetary Fund-backed budget.
The country has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in Asia, a chronic weakness that has forced it into nearly two dozen IMF programmes. Less than 2% of the country pays its income tax.
The unit was formally set up this month, according to an internal document seen by Reuters, which said its mandate was to “systematically monitor, scour and analyse data from major social media platforms” and identify people who display wealth but are either not registered for tax or declare income that appears incongruous with their expenditures and assets.
According to the document, the cell will build digital profiles of suspects, assess the money behind their lifestyles, and prepare reports that can be used for tax or money laundering investigations.
It will maintain a central database of evidence, including screenshots and timestamps, the document said.
