President Arif Alvi President has promulgated Tax Laws (Third Amendment) Ordinance 2021 to legally bound the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to share Pakistani citizens’ data with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for broadening of the tax base.
The Tax Laws (Third Amendment) Ordinance 2021 has also empowered the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to disconnect mobile phone and electricity connections of the non-filers of the income tax returns, according to the ordinance.
The FBR has been empowered to issue an Income Tax General Order in respect of persons who are not appearing on ATL but are liable to file a return under the provisions of this Ordinance. The Income Tax general order may entail any or all of the following consequences for the persons mentioned therein: Disabling of Mobile Phones or Mobile Phone Sims; discontinuance of electricity connection; and the discontinuance of gas connection.
The government also gave a legal cover to an “illegal act” of the past by the FBR when its officers shared information with Nadra without any legal basis.
Sources revealed that in 2019, FBR had discreetly handed over the tax record of income tax return filers for the period 2014 to 2018 to Nadra.
For the last almost a decade, Nadra had been claiming that it could help achieve the objectives of broadening the tax base and increase the tax collection through artificial intelligence-based mathematical models.