ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan summoned more than 20 chief commissioners for an extraordinary meeting on Thursday advising them to work towards broadening of tax base, curbing sales tax evasion, audit of withholding taxes and clearance audit of containers.

They were informed that the prescribed targets were in line with the government’s 100-day agenda.

A senior tax official told Dawn that one of the primary targets of the government is to broaden the tax base. “We have approached the relevant authorities in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to acquire data on potential taxpayers,” the official said.

The data will be obtained from vehicle registration authorities, revenue departments as well as other provincial sources, he added.

As part of the drive, the official said that the board is looking for some institutional arrangements with National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to collect the data.

Nadra had earlier informed the tax authorities that it had procured data on around three million potential taxpayers who were not present on the tax roll.

The government had also asked the FBR to probe into massive evasion of sales tax across the country. The issue came to surface after intelligence department at the Inland Revenue Services detected several cases of sales tax evasion.

“We have directed field formation to implement the contravention reports of sales tax evasion lying unattended for the past many years,” the official said.

FBR collects around 70 per cent of the total income tax through withholding taxes.

The official said there is no mechanism to ascertain whether the withholding agents were depositing total tax collections with the tax department. He said that there are multiple instances where major deviations have been noticed in the withholding tax deduction and subsequent deposits with the tax department.

To discourage this practice, the board has decided to initiate audit of withholding agents. “We have directed field formations to carry out exercise to identify such withholding agents who are evading taxes”, the official said.

On the customs side, tax is only deducted at the import stage on the basis of declared value of goods on a voluntary basis. To ensure accurate declaration of goods, the government has decided to carry out post-clearance audit of cleared containers at ports across the country, the official said.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2018