Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has further widened the scope of its ongoing taxpayer outreach programme by reaching out to the management of PARCO and members and office-bearers of OICCI with a view of creating awareness regarding discharging tax obligations by the taxpayers. The contacts are being made as part of a countrywide exercise started last month by FBR to reach out to more than 50 large public and private sector organisations for roping in their support for the FBR’s drive for filing of Income Tax returns which expires on 31st of October 2017. In order to improve the number of tax filers and create awareness about the advantages of filing of returns, Facilitation and Taxpayer Education (FATE) FBR Member Mrs Nausheen Javaid Amjad visited Karachi and held separate meetings with PARCO Managing Director Mr Tariq Rizavi as well as members and office-bearers of Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry, including OICCI Secretary General Mr Abdul Aleem. During the meetings, Mrs Nausheen Javaid Amjad said that FBR was aware of the organisations and companies diligently fulfilling their responsibility of reporting salary paid and taxes withheld from their employees. However, the employees of these companies were only fulfilling half of their legal obligation and skipping the part that required them to file their tax returns and become filers to reap a host of dividends and advantages accrued from the filing of returns, she added. The PARCO MD and office-bearers of the OICCI lauded what they called a noble cause and initiative of FBR to create public awareness and improve the number of tax filers. They assured their full cooperation to make the FBR outreach campaign successful. Various proposals for simplifying and improving the procedures and business processes for filing of returns were also discussed and it was agreed to maintain and further enhance outreach efforts by FBR to build a stronger interface with the taxpayers. Published in Daily Times, October 25th 2017.