Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs on Friday directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to take effective measures to enhance tax net for boosting revenue collection in the country.
Presiding over the meeting, Senator Saleem H Mandviwala said, “FBR can bring at least 4 million people into the tax net immediately by activating those who had National Tax Number (NTN) but they did not file their returns regularly and by issuing notices to those who travel abroad frequently.”
He also asked the FBR authorities to immediately issue notices to immigration office and National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to give details of the people who had frequently visited abroad and had not filed their tax returns.
Senator Ilyas Bilour suggested to the FBR to improve its system and simplify the service delivery to its tax filers so that non-filers could easily be convinced to enter into the tax net.
Briefing the committee, FBR spokesperson Shahid Hussain Asad said that during the current fiscal year, the FBR had refunded an amount of Rs 30 billion as compared to Rs 16 billion during same period last year.
He informed the committee that 13,986 cases of Inland Revenue appeals and 518 cases of collector customs were pending as of August, 31, 2015.
Senators Muhammad Mohsin Khan Leghari, Ilyas Bilour, Ayesha Raza Farooq, Sardar Fateh Muhammad, Muhammad Hassani and other government officials attended the meeting.
