Move to bring 0.166m new taxpayers under tax net by June

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has moved to add 0.166 million new taxpayers under its tax net by opening their income tax files within next month.
The board recently instructed its field offices across the country to open tax files of the newly identified taxpayers, mainly businessmen and household owners, by June 30 next.
Survey teams of NBR have started the search for new taxpayers from December, 2012 that concluded in January, 2014. They collected information of the potential taxpayers in a prescribed form.
NBR member (survey and inspection) Md Alauddin sent letters to the field offices recently to proceed on the survey findings immediately.
He, however, expressed his frustration over inclusion of a small number of new taxpayers so far that they found through external survey.
In the letter, he urged the field offices to open income tax files and complete assessment within a shortest possible time.
On the year-long survey, the board found some 70 per cent of the new taxpayers from businesses. The team has detected them running business activities without having a valid Taxpayers Identification Number (TIN). Rest 30 per cent are owners of households, mainly in cities and growth centres.  
However, the board missed its target for a total of 0.257 million new taxpayers in its survey-2012 due to volatile political situation last year.
On failure of achieving the target, the board issued letters to the field offices seeking clarifications.
NBR data said the survey teams were able to net around 61 per cent of its target for new taxpayers despite an unfavorable situation.
"The NBR has intensified its monitoring on inclusion of the new taxpayers under existing tax base. Earlier, it found the survey activity failed to increase the number of taxpayers due to lack of constant monitoring," said a senior tax official.
The number of taxpayers is not increasing satisfactorily although the NBR is carrying out the survey every year, he added.    
Talking to the FE, some of the field officials expressed their critical view over the survey activity amid acute manpower shortage to handle regular tax files.
"Innovative ideas are needed for survey activities so that the taxpayers can be motivated to disclose information," he said.
He said most of the tax offices are now busy to meet the income tax collection target for the fiscal year that will conclude next month.
"External survey expands tax net but generates insignificant amount of revenue as marginal taxpayers are netted with the activity," the official said.
He, however, acknowledged the importance of survey activity on increasing the number of taxpayers.
Another senior NBR official said the survey wing will strictly monitor implementation of the instruction on opening tax files within the deadline.
It may issue show cause notice if tax offices fail to comply with the instruction without any valid reason, he added.