ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Shaukat Tarin on Friday advised unregistered potential taxpayers to pay their 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 taxpayers,” he said while addressing the launching ceremony of National Sales Tax Returns (NSTR), organized by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
He said that with the help of technology, the government would reach to all those, who have taxable assets but were not paying taxes adding that there was now no need to issue notices as the government was already in possession a data of millions of taxpayers, adding that the authorities would reach tax evaders and provide them tax returns with an opportunity to prove it wrong by consulting a panel of auditors or pay the due taxes.
“I am giving this good news to unregistered taxpayers that we will reach them in the coming few weeks and we will tell them what’s their income and how much tax they have to pay,” he said.
“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.
“So it is my request to start paying taxes before we reach you,” Tarin said, adding that the government would deal with unregistered taxpayers “on the basis of concrete data and not assumptions”.
“It’s time that we fulfil our responsibility and start paying taxes,” he stressed, adding, “I promise you that if I stay in this position, all persons will not just have to pay income tax, but also sales tax. Because it is the need of this country.”
Furthermore, the minister congratulated federal and provincial revenue divisions for coming on a single platform and making payment of revenues easy for taxpayers.
He said, since sales tax on goods was federal domain and sales tax on services was coming under provinces, hence it was creating hardships for taxpayers.
He said taxpayers would be facilitated under the single platform, adding that in 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 single tax under the new system.
He said that the government was also working on further harmonization of system to facilitate taxpayers and expressed the hope that ease in 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 need to enhance revenue collection.
He cited example of Germany where he said, there was no representation without taxation.
He said 220 million people of this country were in need of houses and jobs, and the government was unable to help them because it lacked resources.
“Our tax to GDP (gross domestic product) [ratio] is around nine to 10 per cent and our current expenditure adds up to 12-13pc. We have to take loans for the payment of our current expenditure and take more loans for other development initiatives,” he said, adding that “this cannot work”.
He lamented that there were only 3 million taxpayers out of 220m population in the country and that out of around Rs18 trillion retail sales, only Rs3 to Rs4 trillion were captured while Rs14 million sales remain missing from the tax system.
