ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue will issue notices to 50,000 people having a lavish lifestyle but contributing nothing to government’s kitty, a senior tax official told Dawn on Tuesday.

This drive against tax evasion was initiated last month in a bid to generate additional revenue for the cash-starved country.

Pakistan is the only country in the region having low tax to GDP ratio, staggering around nine per cent over the past few years.

The drive gained more importance in the background of recent failure of the government talks to secure the suspended last tranches from the IMF.

Revenue Division Spokesperson Israr Rauf told Dawn on Tuesday that notices to 50,000 people will be issued before the end of June 30, 2011. “We have worked out all the details for achieving the target,” he said.

Defending the low target for issuance of notices this year, Mr Rauf said it was not possible to issue notices in bulk to a large number of people due to human resources and other technical problems.

He said that about 2.3 million people had been identified through internal data analysis who had sufficient resources but did not file income tax returns. Of these 700,000 people were those who were comparatively fall in the higher income bracket but did not have national tax numbers (NTNs).

The spokesperson believed that the identified 50,000 people were those, who were living beyond their means but did not file returns. “This will be a symbolic message to the non-filers of the income tax to submit their returns next year,” he said.

Another tax official said that issuing of notices involved tedious exercise, especially getting details from the banking sector, registration authority and NADRA about the people to make sound cases against non-filers. All the people receiving notices would be required to submit provisional assessment within a month.

In case of failure, he said the income tax department would assess their assets and send them notices for submitting revenue with the department. In case of non-payment, , he said, their assets, including bank accounts, would be ceased.

The tax official, however, admitted that the drive would not yield any revenue for the tax department in the current fiscal year. The revenue from these potential taxpayers would be raised in the next fiscal year by bringing them into the tax net, the official added.

The government has appointed 18 tax broadening officers (TBOs) each at every RTO across the country to deal with the identified people.