Sagacious decision by chairman NAB

Chairman National Accountability Bureau, Justice (R) Javed Iqbal, while taking to a delegation of business community, assured that his institution will not take up case of sale tax and income tax and orders have been issued for the return of under probe cases to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). This is a sagacious decision which will restore the confidence of businessmen and industrialists who will now whole heartedly concentrate on generating economic activities.
FBR is the proper forum for dealing with the cases of income tax and sales tax collection and evasion and the drive for filling income tax and sales tax returns is gaining momentum. The number of filers is on the rise and the misgivings of traders about the levy of fixed income tax and sale tax registration shall be allayed by holding talks with the government.
Unfortunately, successive governments encouraged and the culture of tax evasion and preferred to acquire domestic and foreign loans for financing both current and development expenditures. The pubic debt has jumped to Rs.31.8 trillion which 71 percent of the GDP against the sustainable limit of 60 percent. The tax amnesty schemes have also not yielded the desired results of expanding the tax base through direct taxes. As a measure of last resort the Prime Minister office has issued instructions to all Deputy Commissioners and Development authorities through Chief Secretaries of provinces to launch crackdown against “Benami Assets” and submit their reports to the FBR till September 30. The decision was inevitable as still the influential people have not taken seriously the operationalisation of Benami Transactions Prohibition Act. Hopefully, the provincial governments will ensure full compliance of the directives which have been issued from the Prime Ministers’ Office and the FBR will get the required reports. But Inland Revenue Services Department of the FBR is still in the state of denial. They are not keeping necessary liaison with the revenue department of provincial government. The sales tax wing has not started monitoring of the business houses that include sales tax deduction in the sale receipts but the computer generated receipts do not bear sale tax registration numbers which most often lead to disputes between the clients and owners of business houses. Some business houses charge concealed sales tax in their sale receipts which also do not bear sales tax registration numbers. The loopholes of sales tax evasion need to be plugged.

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