ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has initially identified 13,000 taxpayers who are believed not to have paid taxes corresponding to their incomes.

FBR Chairman Sohail Ahmad talking to newsmen here on Friday said that the enforcement staff had come into action but the board had no intention to create any harassment, rather a ‘polite letter’ would be written to defaulters after necessary investigations to establish that they were not paying due taxes.

Through ‘best judgement’ under the law, we would get the due tax, he said with confidence.

He said a ‘conscious decision’ had been taken and the enforcement plan had been sent to all FBR field offices. About the cases, he said these were detected from last year’s data. ‘Our first policy was not to ask any question and accept whatever a taxpayer has paid.’

Mr Sohail said defaulters would be given enough time to clear their dues. ‘We may not have to go to courts or tribunal if this system succeeds,’ he remarked.

FBR has developed a database of all taxpayers. It is a continual process and will be kept on updating.

The FBR chairman said that NTN certificate had been issued to 2.7 million, out of them roughly 60 per cent paid taxes while the remaining did not. He estimated that Rs300 to Rs400 billion were blocked due to referral of cases to courts and tribunals.

He said VAT would be enforced effective July 1 next year replacing the system of GST. With the enforcement of VAT, all previous exemptions would be withdrawn and new exemptions would be prepared.

Mr Sohail regretted that the philosophy of carbon tax was not understood. In fact, a wrong name was given to this type of tax. The carbon tax could have brought to divisible pool resulting in increase in tax-to-GDP ratio. It could have increased to 11.5 per cent had it been enforced.

About reforms in FBR, Mr Sohail Ahmad said he was enjoying full administrative autonomy and there was no interference from the government. ‘In fact, FBR is the Revenue Division and the FBR chairman is the Principal Accounting Officer,’ he explained.

Policy and administration are two different entities and have been separated under the reforms, he added.

Due to this administrative autonomy, FBR was able to generate additional Rs57 billion to the government earnings. The staff and officers of FBR get the usual salary like government employees but those who achieve targets should get additional monetary reward corresponding to the given target, he said.

Earlier, newly-appointed Official Spokesman of FBR Asrar Raouf held informal discussion with media on matters relating to FBR operation and policies. In addition to his new capacity, Mr Raouf would also act as FBR Member Direct Tax Policy.