Daily Times

KARACHI: The significant information of thirty major real estate builders and developers, obtained through a tax raid on top real estate marketing firm by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), can lead to tax recovery worth of billions from construction sector, Daily Times has learnt.

The efforts of FBR officers to bring big fishes under tax net are being undermined by the leadership, as the credible data of thirty major builders, which was obtained during raid on top real estate marketing firm, has been returned, claimed internal sources.

Sources said that the FBR’s Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation-Inland Revenue (I&I-IR) conducted a successful raid on top real estate marketing firm recently that resulted in obtaining significant information related to financial and operational matters of the top thirty builders. However, credible information of the top thirty builders, which was supposed to be used while initiating inquiries against potential tax evaders of construction industry, has been returned to the real estate marketing firm secretly, sources claimed.

Sources said that only one action has been taken on the basis of that information while the data, acquired from the real estate marketing firm, indicates possible tax evasion worth of billions by all thirty builders. Sources said that the I&I-IR, upon the said information, was advised to raid only at the place of the Saima group, which has a comprehensive regional network throughout Pakistan and it is a big name of construction industry.

“On the instructions of IRS Director General Khawaja Tanveer Ahmad, the special team of I&I-IR conducted a raid on the premises of the Saima Group’s head-office and confiscated important record from representatives of the real estate development firm, however, following this raid, no further actions have been taken against any builder by the authority,” sources said.

Similarly, the Directorate General of I&I-IR, Karachi conducted numerous successful raids on premises of doctors, fashion designers, retail stores and technology services’ providers during this year, but the taxes recovery remained insufficient against the calculations and estimations, sources claimed.

If sources are to be believed, it is apparent that some leaders of tax departments are involved with the tax evaders and the benefits of successful raids are going in favour of them instead of the national kitty.

Sources claimed that the recent raid on a headquarters of a Karachi Command and Control Centre’s designer remained fruitless too for the national kitty, as the company paid only Rs 10 million against the assessed recoverable amount of Rs 90 million. In this regard, queries sent by email to the IR operations member and FBR chairman went unanswered.

Before things went wrong, the Directorate General of I&I-IR made a remarkable progress by recovering Rs 63 million directly from the tax evaders during the first eight months (July-February) of fiscal year 2015-16.

Sources said that the Karachi IR Intelligence remained active by the end of February 2016, as the authority carried out total 33 searches and arrested 24 tax evaders while the IR Intelligence developed 89 investigation reports having Rs 364 million of revenue involved in the cases during the July-February of FY16 period and the authority detected 51 high-level cases during the said period as compared to 12 cases in the corresponding period of FY15. Presently, total 159 cases and inquiries were under progress.