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The Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar launched the Taxpayers’ Directory 2017 for Parliamentarians and All taxpayers today at the FBR Headquarters. Chairman FBR Jahanzeb Khan and Member FBR IT Mehmood Aslam Lillah accompanied the Minister for Revenue.
It has been the fifth consecutive year that the Tax Directory for the Parliamentarians and the Tax Payers is published by FBR, said the Chairman addressing the gathering of the Income Tax officers and members of the media team. Increasing the number of tax payers and improving on the Tax to GDP ratio had been the top most priority of the current Government as already affirmed by the Prime Minister and the Minister of State, added the Chairman. There had been a 34% increase in the number of tax filers because of the steps taken by FBR, said the chairman. He further said that increase in investment, facilitation and fair treatment of the tax payers are the guiding principles of the incumbent government’s tax policy.
Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar in his address to the participants of the ceremony said that the object of launching the Tax directory is to introduce financial transparency and sharing information with the Public on how much the Public representatives, who had been availing the resources of the country on behalf of the people, had been paying individually as taxes to the exchequer. The Minister also emphasized the importance of technological interventions in ascertaining the tax liabilities of the individuals thereby minimizing the element of human intervention and complaints against coercion. He said that there are challenges like increase in trade deficit and a large budget deficit that have accumulated over the years but we are taking measures to overcome it. He said that FBR had taken initiatives like ascertaining liabilities of the High Net worth Individuals and getting details of the off-shore assets of the Pakistanis and that will surely not only help in achieving our tax targets but increase our revenues.
The Minister of State also said that it will be our policy from now onwards to collect the taxes from wealthy and mighty first and treat everyone according to the law so that the belief in our system is restored in the hearts of the people. He said that it is the vision of our government to make this country prosperous by providing our business community with a competitive business environment and for this purpose we have offered a trade facilitation package which is in the parliament for approval. We hope that the future is bright for our country and FBR will play its rightful role in this drive towards prosperity.
