The government will soon upload the NADRA profiles of 3.5 million tax evaders and non-filers to broaden the tax net and aid in accountability for tax evasion.
In this connection, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) have finalized the mechanism. The profiles have been finalized by the NADRA with the help of FBR’s third-party data of 14 million records of financial transactions. The profiles will be uploaded on a new FBR website for non-filers of income tax returns.
The said profiles would be used to launch the documentation exercise as promised by Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin.
Tarin had announced that the non-filers and those liable to pay taxes should “immediately start paying their due share before we approach them in the coming days. The un-registered persons would soon be approached, backed by authentic data and estimated tax liability, in the coming days. We have collected data of millions of taxpayers, including bank accounts information, utility bills, travel, and other data.
“There is no need for giving notices to the people in the presence of concrete data. With the use of technology, the data would be shared with estimated tax and their financial transactions and expenditures,” the minister had stated.
“The draft tax returns would be shared with non-filers and ask them to rectify any mistakes. They would be allowed to consult the panel of auditors to check their draft returns. Even then, if the non-filers would not pay taxes, then the law would take its own course,” he added.
Recently, Muhammad Tariq Malik, Chairman, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), informed that the government had identified 3.5 million tax evaders in Pakistan by applying three different methodologies using Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) would now recover dues worth billions of rupees in taxes from them.
He was speaking at the Artificial Intelligence Summit 2022 organized by Total Communications with the support of the Ministry of IT and Telecom in Islamabad.
He further added that Prime Minister Imran Khan had directed the use of “innovative models” to identify tax evaders. “So, we have applied three models and identified 3.5 million tax evaders. PM would soon make it (tax evaders figure) public,” the chairman informed.
The tax evaders were driving luxury cars, living in posh localities, frequent flyers, and had arms licenses. “They had everything, but they didn’t have one thing that was NTN/National Tax Number,” he said.
“We are working with FBR (Federal Board of Revenue). The project is in the implementation phase, meaning (we are) enforcing it and collecting the data (and) tax due,” he added.
