ISLAMABAD, Jul 24 (APP): Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Bilal Azhar Kayani Thursday informed the Senate that Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had recovered Rs 7.81 billion under penalties imposed on non-filers during last five tax- years 2019-20 to 2023-24.
Responding to various questions during Question Hour, the minister said that FBR has introduced stricter policy and enforcements measures to increase tax compliance and address the gap between filers and non-filers. Non filer now face harsher penalties, including financial, legal and transactional consequences, he added.
Sharing details, he said that out of total, a sum of Rs 410,320,556 was recovered from non-filers in tax year 201-20, Rs 1,173,320,517 in 2020-21, Rs 840,673,273 in 2021-22, Rs 1,918,080,672 in 2022-23 and Rs 3,473,390,759 in 2023-24.
The minister said that FBR implemented measures such as higher withholding rates and the recovery of penalties from non-filers contribute to improve revenue collection.
He conceded that there must be no non-filer category and all efforts were being made to abolish this category in order to broaden tax net in the country.
He said currently transformation process was going on in FBR and the Prime Minister was regularly holding meeting into it every week.
Replying to another question, the minister said that embezzlement of 43 articles, consisting of 36 currency articles and 7 gold/silver articles, was unearthed as a result of two detailed audits of the State Warehouse (Valuables), Custom House, Lahore conducted in the year 2019.