Tax chor tyar hojaen; FBR, telecos agree to start blocking SIMs

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and telecom operators have agreed on blocking SIMs of tax non-filers as part of the government’s strategy to punish tax evasion, The News reported on Saturday.

In a statement, the FBR announced that telecom companies have agreed to start the manual blocking process of SIMs in small batches until their systems are fully equipped to automate it.

The FBR said that the first batch comprising 5,000 non-filers has been communicated to telecom operators and further batches would be sent to telecom companies on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, the operators have also commenced sending messages to non-filers regarding the blocking of their SIMs for intimation purposes.

Earlier, a deadlock had been created when telecom operators refused to implement FBR’s decision to block 500,000 SIMs of tax evaders.