ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Friday informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that it collected Rs43.3 billion withholding tax from the consumers of cellular services.

Briefing the PAC on tax collection from mobile phone cards, FBR Chairman Mohammad Nisar Khan said that a consumer gets just Rs63 when he/she uploads Rs100 worth of mobile phone scratch card because certain taxes are automatically deducted from the balance.As per FBR’s statement total deduction of government taxes on mobile cards is Rs26.59 and Rs63.41 balance left with the consumer in each Rs100 card.

The FBR chief briefed the committee that during the last fiscal year, the board generated Rs20 billion after withholding tax was imposed on banks transactions. He, however, said that the amount was not that much as was expected.

He said that the FBR had decided to conduct forensic audit of the amount received by banks in terms of withholding tax.

Officials of National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) suggested to the PAC to direct FBR to conduct forensic audit of transactions made through cellular services. They also recommended that the transactions through mobile phone should have been monitored electronically.

In response, the FBR chairman told the committee that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has been taken on board for the said forensic audit.

The committee directed the FBR to submit a report on the sales tax collection in Gilgit-Baltistan and Fata in next meeting.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2016