Economic Survey: 129,541 power, gas consumers got registered with FBR

ISLAMABAD: As many as 129,541 commercial and industrial consumers of electricity and gas have been registered with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) after issuance of over 650,000 notices based on data of the DISCOs and gas companies.

According to the Economic Survey (2020-21) issued on Thursday, the FBR has taken measures to boost tax collection.

One of the measures included utilisation of data obtained from the DISCOs and gas companies.

More than 650,000 notices have been issued on the basis of data obtained from the DISCOs and in lieu of these notices 129,541 returns have been enforced so far.

It said that the number of income tax return filers for tax year 2020 has crossed 3.0 million.

In order to develop 360-degree view of taxpayers, data sources like banks, vehicles, and real estate transactions have been captured, and a data bank has been developed.

Based on this data bank, notices to more than 200,000 high net-worth un-registered persons have been issued.

The FBR has developed a centralised Risk-based Audit Management System (RAMS) for selection of audit cases centrally on the basis of pre-determined risk parameters.

Subsequently, in September 2020, through Audit Policy, 2019, a total number of 12,533 cases were selected for audit for Tax Year 2018 through RAMS.

The FBR is also moving for instituting data analytics for E-Audit through transformation in the traditional audit processes.

In this system, the correspondence between taxpayers and the tax department would totally be electronic till the conclusion of the audit proceedings.

A software solution is under process to provide continuous monitoring of the audit cases with sufficient documentation and assistance to the auditors, it added.