FBR considers turning to whistle-blowers to expose tax evaders

ISLAMABAD, AUG 23 (DNA): The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is weighing the resumption of its long-suspended Tax Directory and is also considering enlisting private-sector whistle-blowers to help identify potential tax dodgers.

Under the proposed plan, whistle-blower companies would be rewarded with a share of the recovered amount from tax evaders, ranging between 5% to 10% depending on the scale of evasion. Senior officials said the wealthy elite who deliberately evade taxes “will not be spared.”

The Tax Directory was last published for the tax year 2019 but was subsequently discontinued for reasons never publicly explained. Insiders suggest the move benefited individuals unable to justify multimillion-rupee assets and incomes despite living beyond their declared means.

Although the publication of the Tax Directory was launched during the tenure of the PML-N from 2013-18, and then it continued in the PTI-led regime, this practice has been discontinued for the last several years.

The government is now considering publishing the Tax Directory again. In the past, the tax directory of parliamentarians and the tax directory of all return filers were published.

Now the federal cabinet is going to consider approval for the resumption of practice for publishing the Tax Directory for the last fiscal year 2025. “The FBR is going to send summary to the federal cabinet for getting permission”, said the official.

In another linked development, the FBR will seek permission for the placement of private sector companies for the purpose of whistleblowers to get information about potential tax dodgers.

If tax information is found correct and results in the collection of tax amount, the FBR will provide certain percentage of amount to the company. The FBR plans to grant permission to about 100 such companies for the purpose of whistleblowing.

Earlier, it was considered to grant permission to share secret information from individuals, but there are certain restrictions imposed by the higher judiciary for sharing secret information. Now the FBR will pitch private sector firms against the private sector individuals and firms to get such information that can be translated into taxability.

Instead of hiring inspectors who can be managed easily by wealthy people, the FBR has decided utilising the digitisation of the economy and then cross match the information with the declared income and actual income determined on the basis of authentic information.

The FBR had received more than 7.2 million returns in the last fiscal year, but it remained a futile exercise mainly because there was a rampant surge in the cases of nil filers who came into the tax net only for the purpose of remaining in the Active Taxpayer List (ATL).