ISLAMABAD – Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance Abdul Hafeez ShaikhSaturday informed that the government was setting the revenue collectiontarget of Rs 5.5 trillion for next financial year of 2019-20.
He said in order to collect the additional revenues, more people andcommercial companies would be brought in to tax net and no extra burdenwould be put on those who were already paying taxes. However he said thegovernment was taking hard measures to put more burden on the tax evaders.
He hoped that the new Chairman of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) ShabbarZaidi who was quite an able and hard working person, would meet thechallenge of an ambitious target.
Addressing a press conference here, Hafeez Shaikh said at present 360companies were paying 85% of total revenue of the country, while there arethousands of other companies who were not still paying any taxes.
He said in order to bring people in the tax system, the government wouldutilize the data of gas, electricity consumers, bank account holders andcompanies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission ofPakistan (SECP).
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He pointed out that there were as many as 341,000 commercial consumers outof which only 40,000 were registered with the FBR.
Similarly, Shaikh said out of total 50 million bank accounts, only 10% wereregistered with the FBR.The government he said was determined to bring all the tax evaders to taxnet in order to increase tax revenues.
