ISLAMABAD, Sept 17: Federal Board of Revenue assigned its Intelligence Wing to reduce tax evasion by 20 per cent before the end of 2013-14, an official told Dawn on Monday.

The World Bank in its recent study quantified the amount of total tax evasion in the economy at more than Rs700 billion, which needs to be brought under the purview of the taxation system.Tax evasion is the difference between potential and actual tax collection, where potential being the amount of tax the government collects if everyone fully complies with the tax law.

Director General, Intelligence & Investigation (Inland Revenue), Khawaja Tanveer Ahmad told Dawn that all intelligence directors have been given the targets to reduce tax evasion and bring that amount into the normal taxation system.

In the current fiscal year, he said 10 per cent will be added to the taxation system while the total amount to be added to the taxation system is around Rs140 billion within two years, he added.

Mr Ahmad said that his intelligence organization has made cases for the recovery of Rs10 billion in the recent months.

“We are investigating many more cases involving billions of rupees in tax evasion”, he added.

All these issues were discussed in the first Quarterly Conference of Intelligence & Investigation (Inland Revenue) held in Islamabad.

An official statement issued after the meeting said that the Chairman FBR Ali Arshad Hakeem, stressed upon the participants to enhance tax compliance and curb revenue leakages and general non-compliance through concrete and timely information on all sorts of tax evasion. He emphasized the central role which an Intelligence Agency like the DG intelligence could play in enhancing tax compliance in the country.

Hakeem also suggested that there should be one intelligence organization for all taxes and stressed for information sharing of all taxes.

The meeting was informed regarding various strategies on how to curb revenue leakages through mis-declaration, tax frauds, fake refunds and general non-compliance.

Ahmad highlighted the role envisaged for the DG intelligence and called upon the participants to draw a roadmap for achieving the tasks assigned to the Directorate General.