In a historic development, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) took a watershed initiative to ensure facilitation in the filing of tax returns by new taxpayers for the Broadening of the Tax Base by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Pakistan Tax Bar at FBR (HQ) on 7 February.
The FBR is ready to launch another out-of-the-box digital intervention for the Broadening of the Tax Base through the definite information about nonfilers that it has obtained. It has already collected information about the assets and expenditures of persons outside the tax net from various sources, and this information will be made available to the latter on the Tax Asaan Portal.
Under the MoU, the Pakistan Tax Bar will share the lists of qualified and willing members of the Tax Bar to file the tax returns of the new taxpayers. The FBR will make this list of tax consultants available to the new taxpayers who want to file tax returns, and will facilitate this by payment of a fixed fee for the filing of returns to the tax consultants. The facility will be completely voluntary, and a taxpayer will have the option to either avail of this free-of-cost facility or hire their own tax consultant.
The Broadening of the Tax Base is a key priority of the government, and this facility of filing of tax returns is an unprecedented step for the facilitation of new taxpayers to maximize tax compliance in the country.
