Identify tax evaders: Federal government to use innovative AI technology

Identify tax evaders: Federal government to use innovative AI technology

*ISLAMABAD - PTI government has decided to use modern technology to locate the tax evaders in the country.*

*Finance Minister Asad Umar recently hinted at using data and AI to identify tax evaders.*

“Algorithms are now very advanced. Global tax collection agencies don’t rely solely on traditional methods for collection, they use modern technology,” he said. “We want to use anonymised data to run algorithms which will help us identify tax evaders.”

But what algorithms was Umar referring to and how do they work? In order to understand this we need to first understand what Big Data is and how AI works.

Let’s just say that Big Data is data that is too large to process on one computer. Suppose you wanted to work with an Excel file of four gigabytes. Odds are that the average PC will not be able to open this file in the first place. Even if it opens, suppose you want to analyse it for information -- it is very likely that your PC will either become very slow or will simply stop responding.

There are technologies through which big data can be analysed. Banks and multinational companies all over the world are already using them.