KARACHI: Only 9 million income tax returns are filed annually due to poor performance of the field formation offices of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

Member Inland Revenue (Policy), FBR , Shahid Husain Asad observed this while speaking at a post-budget seminar organised by the Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) on Tuesday.

Mr Asad alleged that exporters were not paying their due taxes judiciously and the issue had been also raised by the IMF with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

Responding to a suggestion that foreign companies earning profits in the country should be asked to retain some portion and should not be allowed to repatriate entire profits, he said that this was not possible because the FDI is already shrinking and Pakistan cannot afford to be stern with overseas investors.

“Opening up of foreign fast food franchise chains did not benefit the country economically and the country needed investment in large-scale production houses that would have generated jobs and revenue,” he commented.

He admitted that many taxpayers had to pay double taxes in the shape of Federal Excise Duty (FED) at federal level and sales tax on services at provincial level. He assured that the issue would be sorted out soon.

He said that exporters have been given the option to move out of the final tax regime (FTR) and adopt the normal tax regime based on their profits. Tax deducted at export stage of one per cent will be considered their final tax liability, he added.

The FBR member said that Mutual Funds were not paying tax and were avoiding discharging their tax liability. Under the proposed budgetary measures, dividend paid by them will now be taxed at the rate of 25pc, he said.

He further said that all banking instruments have been subjected to deduction of tax at the rate of 0.6pc in the case of non-fillers. This will help to document the huge transactions being made in real estate sector but it will be adjustable if one becomes a filer at later stage.

This step has been taken to broaden the tax base and document the economy so that the tax-to-GDP ratio is improved, he added.

Speaking on direct taxes, former president, Pakistan Tax Bar Association and KTBA Abdul Qadir Memon observed that the federal budget 2015-16 carried some good proposals. “Equally some changes would be needed to give relief to taxpayers,” he noted.

Former chairman, Southern Regional Committee ICAP Adnan Ahmed Mufti speaking on indirect taxes was critical of the budget proposals and said that it focused on revenue collection but failed to give a road map for broadening the tax base.

Chief guest of the seminar and chairman of Tax Reform Commission of Pakistan, Syed Masoud Ali Naqvi said that he had submitted a detailed report on tax reforms but it was yet to be implemented by the FBR.

He stressed upon the need to check the ever-growing black economy which has almost grown to the size of half of the revenue budget of the country. “This is only due to the tax collection system which is discriminatory and harassment based,” he said.

President KTBA Mohammad Zubair objected to the system of allowing the CNIC number to replace NTN.

He demanded precautionary measures so that the CNIC number does not fall in the hands of terrorists and extortionists and become a tool for blackmailing taxpayers.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2015

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