This was revealed by Israr Rauf, Additional Secretary Revenue Division, while talking exclusively to this correspondent on his return from Karachi on Wednesday night. Israr Rauf said that in compliance with the far-sighted policies formulated by Federal Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh and Chairman FBR Salman Siddique, Pakistani banks were monitored and a fraud of Rs19 billion was unearthed and proceedings have been initiated against the banks. These banks were found to be making short payments. On being asked, they could not justify their dealings and as such they were indulging in tax evasion. He said that five officials of a Karachi bank have been handed over to FIA.
Talking about their modus operandi Israr Rauf said that if someone deposited Rs100 as road tax, the bank deposited only Rs20 in the government treasury. In one branch of the bank alone a fraud of Rs285 million was detected. The entire amount has been recovered from the accused. He further said that they have detected 700,000 persons who were not even filing tax returns. Out of them 17,000 alone belong to Karachi and notices have been issued to these tax-evaders. So far interim assessment has been made of the tax of 214 individuals and they owe a sum of Rs671 million as tax. This points to the huge amount to be realized as tax when assessment of all the 17,000 individuals is completed. Taking all the 700,000 persons into account, it can be visualized that hundreds of billions in taxes would be recoverable for all times.
Israr Rauf said that FBR’s target of tax collection from 1st July, 2010 to 31st May, 2011 was Rs1,302 billion, whereas by the grace of Allah we will have collected a sum of Rs1,315 billion when final figures are available. In the month of May 2011 alone, we collected 45.6% more tax corresponding to tax collected in May 2010.
