Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) launched a countrywide crackdown from where five people have been arrested and under this campaign, involved in heavy money laundering crimes. FBR spokesperson Bakhtiar Muhammad confirmed with ARY News that key personalities of important industries have been included in these arrests.
Among those taken into custody is the CFO of a leading battery manufacturer accused of accumulating sales tax fraud of over Rs. 1 billion. Another prominent businessman of Faisalabad was arrested from his suburban residence Fateh Jhang for being the group CFO of a multibillion rupee textile firm accused of millions of rupees of sales tax embezzlement.
A third suspect was also arrested and was, according to the FBR spokesperson, said to be involved in the evasion of billions of rupees in taxes. He, like others, was grilled in the court after it denied the bail requests filed by the suspects.
It forms part of the larger effort by the government to tackle the massive tax evasion problem in Pakistan. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has recently revealed that nearly Rs 7,000 billion is lost to the country every year due to tax evasion. He unveiled a resolute “war against tax evaders” underlining a need for reforms to expand the tax net and lighten the burden from the salaried class, which bears the major part of taxation.
The other focus was on increasing the tax-to-GDP ratio to 13.5%. Within this effort, the FBR is focusing on around 2.8 million households that do not file tax returns at present, hoping to ultimately contribute around Rs1.6 trillion to the national economy.
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