ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday directed tax authorities to take harsh action against tax evaders and corrupt elements within tax departments.
The prime minister said issued directives while chairing a meeting over the government’s steps for revenue generation.
He directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for exposing the tax evaders and defaulters before the public through indiscriminate action, besides ensuring appropriate proceedings against corrupt elements in the revenue and tax departments who had been involved in facilitating such tax evasion.
The prime minister also directed for facilitating the regular taxpayers instead of causing harassment to them.
The meeting was attended by Minister for Finance Asad Umar, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Caudhry Fawad Hussain, Minister of State for Revenue Hamad Azhar, PM’s spokesperson Nadeem Afzal Chan, Special Assistant to PM Iftikhar Durrani, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue Jehanzeb Khan, and other officials, PM office media wing in a press release said.
During the meeting, the Prime Minister observed that tax evaders were the enemies of the country and nation and they did not deserve any kind of leniency.
Earlier, the FBR chairman explained in detail about tax collection and efforts for broadening the tax base.
He said that cases of 6,000 high net worth individuals were under examination where Rs2 billion were expected to be collected. The chairman said so far around Rs1.3 billion had been collected.
He said that FBR had completed the mapping of 2,000 plazas. Further, over 2,500 points of sale had been installed for automated revenue collection.
The FBR chairman said that these initiatives would generate around Rs24.8 billion.
