FBR to Notify Non-Filers That Are Paying Massive WHT on Mobile Transactions

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has deputed a team of tax officials to analyze data of 100 million persons received from Mobile phone companies.

Highly-placed officials in the FBR told Propakistani that the FBR will issue notices to the subscribers of Mobile Phones on the basis of the higher amount of withholding tax being deducted on calls. The notices would be served to the non-filers, who are paying huge amount of withholding tax on mobile phone transactions, but not filing income tax returns.

They said that the FBR has received data of 100 million people from telcos.

“We will also use the data of telecommunication companies for expanding the tax net. These are mobile phone customers having CNICs, they have shared data of those, where withholding tax has been deducted,” top officials said.

So far, the FBR has not issued notices on the basis of mobile phone data. The FBR is categorizing the data of mobile phone subscribers based on withholding tax (12.5 percent advance income tax) paid by them. However, once the FBR’s internal exercise is completed, the FBR will start issuing notices on a national level through its centralized system.

The FBR has identified over 7.4 million potential non-filers who conducted huge amounts of transactions and paid withholding taxes on mobile phone calls, purchasing properties, vehicles, and other luxurious items but living out of the tax net.

All the cellular mobile companies provided data of 100 million subscribers and even if 90 percent are excluded from them, then 10 million are potential non-filers. It is a challenging task to convert this database to taxability, so technology will be utilized to expand the tax base.

At the same time, the IT Wing of the FBR is using technology and maintaining a database, to check from the withholding tax record that whether withholding tax has been deducted from one million persons having no taxable income. There are almost 0.24 to 0.26 million persons who are getting Rs. 14 billion to Rs. 20 billion worth withholding tax deducted.