ISLAMABAD: The Fede­ral Board of Revenue (FBR) has notified rules for a claim of reward for detection, recovery of evaded tax, meritorious services and extraordinary performance of tax officials.

The rules were notified on Friday through a Revenue Division notification SRO78 of 2021 which will apply to all Inland Revenues — income tax, sales tax, federal excise duty, and sales tax — on services in the federal capital territory.

Under these rules, the informer or whistleblower will have to get registered for the purpose of being an informer and provide information in the shape of concrete evidence which leads to detection of tax evasion, formulation of assessment, reassessment, and eventual recovery of the evaded tax.

For officials and officers, rules are also notified to determine reward in cases of detection of short-assessment of tax or deduction in inadmissible refunds. Similarly, the meritorious service will be assessed in terms of exceeding budgetary targets, exceptional results in the recovery of arrears, enlarging of tax base by adding a large number of new taxpayers whose contribution to revenue would be substantial.

The chairman of the FBR and the member operation are authorised to sanction the awards.

The reward for officials/officers will be a two-year salary in cases of detecting tax evasion and completing the adjudication process. The whistleblower will be entitled to a reward at the rate of 20 per cent up to a maximum of Rs5 million of the tax sought to be evaded in a single case.

The amount of reward for meritorious services in no case will be less than three and more than six salaries in every single case. The amount of reward for extraordinary performance in no case will be less than 12 and more than 24 salaries in each single case for each officer/staff involved in the assigned task.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2021