Latest FBR Releases
| 16th National Tax Conference was held here today under the chairmanship of the Secretary General, Revenue Division & Chairman, Federal Board of Revenue, Mr. M. Abdullah Yusuf. Speaking on the occasion, the Chairman advised the tax managers to tap full revenue potential existing in various sectors to recover the revenue losses occurred due to the disturbances in the country last month and gas and electricity shortages which have slowed down the business, trade and industrial activities in the country. The Chairman also identified various grey areas from which the full revenue potential is yet to be tapped. He stressed that the tax mangers have to pay special attention to enhance revenue collection from these areas. In this connection, he particularly referred the nominal revenue collection on rental income from the properties. Mr. M. Abdullah Yusuf expressed the need to formulate an action plan to tap the tax potential by utilizing the computerised data available with different institutions/departments within the provinces. He further reiterated that we have to tackle all such issues in a professional manner. Chairman also underlined the need of plugging the revenue leakages to improve the tax collections. During the conference, a comprehensive discussion was held on with-holding taxes and a number of avenues were marked to un-earth the non-deduction by effective monitoring and matching the information being received form different quarters. Discussion on preparing and rechecking of the list of with-holding agents was also discussed at length. Earlier, Member (Direct Taxes) Mr. Usman Khalid Mirza, in his presentation, briefed the conference about the overall performance of the Wing and its field formations. He said, the disturbances and electcity load-shedding have seriously affected the e-filing of corporate returns in December-which was a very crucial month for direct taxes collection this has forced FBR to extend its date upto January 31, 2008. He, however, said that a considerable growth have already witnessed in e-filing of returns of corporate and Association of Persons (AOPs). Regarding recovery of arrears, Mr. Usman Mirza informed the participants that Rs. 4.7 billion have already been recovered upto 31st December, 2007, leaving the pending balance of Rs. 22.4 billion. During July-December, 2007, refund claims amounting to Rs. 13 billion have been cleared. He expressed the hope that Budget fixed for the current year will be hopefully achieved. Member (Legal), Mr. Mumtaz Ahmed Sheikh briefed the conference about the progress made in liquidation of litigation at various levels. He informed that a total number of 3592 tax appeals were disposed off by the Supreme Court of Pakistan since January, 2006 which included 2533 of direct taxes and 1059 of indirect taxes. Chief (Audit) Mr. Humayun Khan Sikandari appraised the conference that the National Audit Plan has been formulated and subsequently adopted by the FBR. He assured the participants that 100% settlement of all internal audit paras will be achieved by 30th June, 2008. FBR Chairman, Mr. M. Abdullah Yusuf appreciated the performance of Audit Wing. |
