43,000 rich people netted

Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation, Inland Revenue (IR) Federal Board of Revenue has identified more than 100,000 out of tax net cases during three months and completed action against over 43,000 wealthy persons, reflecting encouraging results of the exercise initiated to document the national economy.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday that the FBR has initiated income tax proceedings in more than 100,000 cases including notices, assessments, audit, provisional assessments, withholding assessment and other proceedings as per provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001. The tax activity has been witnessed in these cases and 40 percent cases have been completed in only three months period. The tax activity particularly income tax proceedings has been witnessed in a large number of cases due to day and night efforts of the DG Intelligence IR.
Sources said that a total of 26,740 un-documented persons have filed their income tax returns and deposited tax over Rs 350 million in response to notices of non-filing issued by the directorate. The FBR has completed provisional income tax assessment against 16,878 un-documented persons. Even the Broadening of Tax Base (BTB) Unit in Quetta has completed provincial income tax assessments against 28 Haj operators and raised income tax demand of Rs 38 million. In Gujranwala, car dealers have deposited around Rs 35 lakh as tax on booking of new cars.
Most of the provisional assessments have been done in Lahore and Karachi, detecting major amount in big cities. In many other cases, the department has been able to enforce filing of returns by wealthy persons in Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Faisalabad and other cities of the country. Action has already been taken against the travel agents and tour operators in Lahore.
The data as on June 30, 2011 revealed that the FBR has enforced returns from 26,740 un-documented persons and recovered tax to the tune of Rs 350 million. The directorate has completed provisional income tax assessments against 16,878 wealthy persons and raised huge income tax demand of over Rs 5.76 billion during the last three months.
Besides ample data from NADRA, the directorate has obtained information about the potential persons from Bureau of Immigration (1529 cases), Pakistan Engineering Council (918 cases), Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (27,000 cases), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (26,857 companies), housing societies (129 cases), guest houses (129), Overseas Employment Promoters (1529 cases) and unregistered oil importers and distributors (1763 cases) and other sources of third party information to expand the tax net.
The database of the FBR has further revealed that the national flag carrier has deposited huge amount of excise duty of Rs 540 million for tax period of April 2011 and amount deposited in June 2011. The agency would further intensify its efforts in the next fiscal for completion of action in the remaining cases, sources added.