FBR uncovers Rs100 billion in tax fraud within last four months of PTI govt

Karachi’s Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU) — the biggest revenue collecting arm of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) — has unearthed Rs100 billion in tax evasion from July to October of the current fiscal year, The News International reported.

According to the details, the senior officials of LTU Karachi have revealed that in the ongoing audit and examination, the unit detected Rs100 billion as tax avoidance/evasion by around 12 companies.

Inland Revenue commissioners Zulfiqar Memon and Girdhari Mal announced these evasions while sharing information about the performance of the unit on the instructions of the FBR Chairman Shabbar Zaidi.

The names of the tax-evading companies were, however, not disclosed.

Reports quoted Girdhari as saying that one of the cases involved tax concealment of a whopping Rs23 billion and notices had been issued to the companies for recovering the taxes.

“LTU posted a 16% growth in revenue collection during the first four months of (July – October) 2019-20,” he said and attributed the growth to reforms and initiatives taken by the government.

LTU Karachi released Rs21 billion as sales tax refunds during the period under review after the change in sales tax regime effective July 1, 2019, stated the report.

Meanwhile, Memon said that the law of information sharing from banks to tax authorities was introduced in 2013, however, the law had been given a stay order by the courts.

He added that FBR was unable to receive information with the exception of specific/identified cases from banks. Recently a court has advised the bureau and Pakistan Banks’ Association to resolve the issue.

LTU Karachi has also identified around 100,000 individuals who have commercial gas connections, but don’t have mandatory sales tax registration.