LTU detects Rs 22 billion discrepancies in eight banks' accounts

The Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU), Karachi, has detected massive discrepancies, worth Rs 22 billion, in the ledgers of some eight financial institutions, sources said on Saturday. "The Karachi LTU has surfaced Rs 22 billion revenue leakage during monitoring of withholding tax (WHT) in the financial books of some eight banks," said Khawar Khurshid Butt, Member, Inland Revenue, while talking to newsmen during his visit to Karachi Regional Tax Office (RTO) here.
He said that orders would be issued to these banks shortly, while the recovery of Rs 2.1 billion has already been made from two banks. He further said that representatives of these financial institutions had approached Sindh High Court for stay order but the same was not granted.
Hence, this exercise is now going to be extended to some 20 banks, and the department is expecting to recover around Rs 30 billion additional revenue in this connection, he said. He said the annual budgetary target of Rs 1588 billion for 2010-11 would be achieved as the revenue body collected Rs 165 billion in May while the remaining shortfall of Rs 260 billion would be bridged in the month of June.
Butt seemed optimistic to attain the uphill task of Rs 1952 billion for next fiscal year (2011-12), saying that the Board could achieve the target through selective audit and effective monitoring of WHT and sales tax, albeit the reduction in sales tax by 1 percent would create a negative impact of Rs 35 billion on revenue.
He said that tax-to-GDP ratio, which is currently stands at 9.1 percent, is being expected to reach at 9.5 percent in coming fiscal year. Moreover, he said, the Board would hopefully generate around Rs 900 million from new taxpayers, which were identified through Nadra database.