Accounts information of Parties, MPs' on website: ECP opposes FBR proposal

The Federal Board of Revenue has opposed a proposal of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to place on its website the notifications containing details of political parties' accounts as well as statements of assets and liabilities of Members of the Parliament and Provincial Assemblies.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Monday that the issue came to light during the last meeting of the ECP with the FBR on the sharing of data of politicians for broadening the tax base. The ECP raised a question whether the ECP should place on the website the notifications containing details of political parties account as well as statements of assets and liabilities of Members of the Parliament and Provincial Assemblies?
Responding to this, the representatives of the FBR opposed the proposal with the argument that if the ECP wanted to place the statements of assets and liabilities of Members of the Parliament and Provincial Assemblies, the same details of civil servants, bureaucrats, judges and army should also be placed and as matter of principal it would be unjustified to only place details of parliamentarians on the ECP's website. The question is not about the legality of the issue, but equal treatment before taking any such major decision of disclosing details of assets on the website of the ECP. Thus, it would not be appropriate to merely disclose details of assets and liabilities of only politicians.
According to sources, the FBR will also implement a plan to determine the tax status of parliamentarians in the presence of authentic data of their assets and liabilities to be obtained from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for which tax authorities are constantly pressing the commission for.
Sources stated that the ECP has not refused to provide information of assets and liabilities of Members Parliament and Provincial Assemblies. In every meeting between the ECP and the FBR, the officials of the ECP assured the tax authorities to share assets and liabilities related data of MPs as per existing provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001. The FBR is confident to obtain the requisite data from the ECP to determine the income tax liabilities of parliamentarians.
Sources further said that the FBR will determine the income tax liabilities of the Members of National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies on the basis of the data to be submitted by the ECP. Once the data is made available to the FBR, the tax department will divide the parliamentarians into two categories ie taxpayers or holders of National Tax Numbers (NTNs) and secondly non-taxpayers. Within the category of non-taxpayers, the FBR will cross match the assets/liabilities related data of parliamentarians with the database available with the FBR. The FBR will also be in a position to know about the exact status of NTN of each Parliamentarian on the basis data of the ECP. At present, the FBR is unable to know about the taxability of the Parliamentarians due to non-availability of their data pertaining to assets and liabilities. If the Parliamentarians are liable to obtain NTN and file return, the FBR will issue notices to them under section 114 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001. If the Parliamentarians are already filing returns, the data would be cross matched to determine their actual income. In case a Parliamentarian is a new taxpayer, the data will be analysed to ensure filing of income tax returns.