ISLAMABAD: At a time when the tax machinery is busy in preparing Budget 2018-19, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has picked as many as 44,868 cases for audit. An overwhelming majority of these cases fall in the category of non-corporate income taxpayers.

The selection was conducted through computer ballot in six categories. These include three heads each — income tax, sales tax and federal excise duty (FED) — for corporate and non-corporate cases.

The government has already notified the audit policy for 2017.

The selection was based on risk parameters and resultantly compliant taxpayers would not be selected. These cases will be handled by offices in addition to pending audit cases of the previous years.

As per the break up, 1,499 cases of corporate income tax were selected for audit, while the number of non-corporate taxpayers selected for audit stood at 34,515. In the case of sales tax, corporate taxpayers picked for audit stood at 1,274 while in the case of non-corporate taxpayers it stood at 7,532.

Through the computer ballot, 28 corporate cases of FED were selected while in case of non-corporate it stood at 20 only.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Revenue Haroon Akhtar Khan said parametric computer ballot as per the Audit Policy 2017 was held for selection of cases for audit for Tax Year 2016 and Tax Periods from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016, in respect of Income Tax, Sales Tax and FED.

Mr Khan underscored the importance of audit in a country like Pakistan where universal self assessment scheme is prevalent.

In order to facilitate the taxpayers, it was decided that the case of a taxpayer once selected for audit under section 214C of Income Tax Ordinance 2001, section 72B of the Sales Tax Act 1990 and section 42B of the FED Act 2005 will not be selected for audit for next (consecutive) two tax years, he explained.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2018