ISLAMABAD-After publishing tax details of the parliamentarians a couple of months ago, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), adding a new chapter to national history, on Tuesday issued the maiden tax directory of the country showing income tax details of over 0.8 million taxpayers.
Pakistan has become the fourth country in the world to publish tax particulars of all its registered taxpayers. Sweden, Finland and Norway had issued the tax directory before Pakistan. The FBR has issued the tax directory on the direction of Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar, who instructed FBR to publish a tax directory of all taxpayers including lawmakers of the tax year 2013 of the country.
The tax directory, having over 16000 pages, provides the name, NTN and amount of tax paid by those who had filed their returns. However, the FBR did not disclose the incomes of the taxpayers into directory. “The final version of the directory shall be published by June 30, 2014. Till said date, this directory may be treated as provisional edition”, stated the tax directory. The FBR asked the taxpayers to review their returns data and should approach FBR if there is any discrepancy in their published data or the return is not available in the directory.
The directory disclosed that majority of the people have National Tax Numbers (NTS) but they did not bother to pay due taxes. “The tax directory consists details of all taxpayers of the country, which are around 0.8 to 0.85 million”, said an official of the FBR. According to the tax directory, Pakistan International Airline Corporation has paid taxes worth of Rs 280,325,165. Pakistan Cricket Board paid income tax worth of Rs 23,778,572.
Pearl Continental Hotels (Private) Limited paid Rs 260,138 taxes. Nokia Pakistan Mobile Private Limited paid Rs 1,195,630. Nokia Siemens Networks Pakistan (Private) Limited paid Rs 14,093,005. Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority paid Rs 35,850,477 taxes. National Police Foundation paid income tax worth of Rs 1,960,601. Pak Shaheen Aviations paid income tax worth of Rs 34,843.
Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry paid taxes of Rs 450,998. Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry paid taxes worth of 1,584,414. First Women Bank Limited paid Rs 32,326,157. Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation (Private) Limited paid Rs 15,600,200. Pak China Investment Company Limited paid Rs 3 47,293,852 tax. Pak Suzuki Motor Co Limited paid Rs 5 13,605,147 tax. Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation paid taxes worth of 712,680.
Similarly, National Foods Limited paid Rs 209,611,003, National Fertilizer Marketing Limited paid Rs 2 59,016,724 and National Investment Trust Limited paid Rs 53,608,642.
The tax directory revealed that there are hundreds of companies having NTN but did not pay their taxes. These included National Testing Service - Pakistan. Airborne Aviation (Private) Limited, Airblue Limited, Government Employees Co-Operative Housing Society Limited, Government of Balochistan, Islamabad Electric Supply Company Limited, LG Electronics Inc, National Highway Authority, Pakistan Defence Officers Housing Authority, Pakistan Engineering Council, Pakistan Stock Exchange (Private) Limited and Punjab Group of Colleges.