Caretaker Federal Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar has quite categorically said that the last date for availing the incentives under the Tax Amnesty Scheme will not be extended and exhorted senior Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) officials to keep up their efforts for ensuring and realizing the best possible results under the scheme.
The caretaker Finance Minister said this while chairing a high level meeting at the FBR in Islamabad the other day at which she was given somewhat extensive briefing about Tax Amnesty Scheme and revenue generation as well as working of the main revenue generation body of the country.
According to the reports in the newspapers, the Finance Minister also emphasized on the officials concerned to effectively utilize public liaison and advertisement campaign during the remaining period of the schemes validity period to take the scheme to a meaningful and conclusive end.
Dr Shamshad Akhtar on the occasion called on the FBR to come up with measures particularly for simplification of filing of tax returns and automation that can help in enhacing revenue generation and also highlighted the need for installation of quality scanners at all the ports replacing physical checking for Customs clearance as a step for boosting revenue generation of the country.
During briefing earlier on, FBR Chairman informed her about the progress of the Tax Amnesty Scheme and said overall there has been a positive response to the amnesty scheme and hoped it will have a significant bearing on revenue generation.
Many sectors and sub-sectors remain by and large untaxed like transport sector and wagon and bus owners as well as dress designers who are selling their products online in foreign countries and private educational institutions and doing roaring business without documentation in most cases. They need to be tapped and make to pay due taxes and making main tax payers names public for general information.
M.Z.RIFAT,
Lahore, June 20.
