The National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance recommended the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Friday to coordinate with National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for identifying new potential taxpayers in the country.
The Committee directed the FBR to offer incentives to the taxpayers and in this regard, special counters in airports, railway stations, hospitals and other public places should be set up for their facilitation and motivation.
The meeting of the Committee held here under the chairpersonship of Fozia Wahab with its members including Kashmala Tariq, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Abdul Rashid Godil and Arif Aziz Shaikh.
The committee also directed the finance ministry to arrange detailed briefing on auto sector and the detail of subsidy on fertiliser. Besides, the ministry was directed that the committee should be briefed on current and last year’s development budget allocated to MNAs and also on development schemes and allocation of plots by ministry of housing and works.
The committee was informed that budgetary tax proposal was not still finalised but in the progress and all stakeholders were taken in the confidence.
Moreover, the committee was told that about 0.7 million new potential tax payers were identified and of total, 0.5 million tax non-filers were served the notices for filing taxes.
In addition, fiscal deficit was recorded as 4.3 per cent of GDP during July-March of current financial year while during the previous year the deficit remained at 4.6 per cent of GDP.
The committee was also informed that the government had taken initiatives for empowering the workers in the institutions and transferred 12 per cent shares to 0.5 million employees in 80 State-owned Entities under Benazir Employees Stock Option Programme (BESOS).
The committee was told that about 100,000 interns were benefitted under Internship Program and in addition, grant of Rs119 billion was also given to Railways.
The government has also provided about Rs42 billion for support of flood affected people in the country.
“To keep prices of essential items affordable for common man, the subsidies of Rs1,122 billion, Rs104 billion, Rs110 billion, Rs137 billion and Rs136 billion were given to Power sector, Petroleum sector, Fertiliser sector, food and Petroleum levy forgone respectively”, the committee was informed.
