Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has failed to publish the 2015 tax directory of parliamentarians and general taxpayers. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had announced publishing the tax directory of parliamentarians and general taxpayers at the end of February every year after severe criticism from the opposition parties. However, the government failed to keep its promise. The government had issued the tax directory for 2014 on April10, 2015, two months behind the time. As many as 1,040 of the 1,169 lawmakers filed their tax returns. Sources in the FBR said the revenue department had linked the tax directory of parliamentarians to the voluntary tax amnesty scheme that’s why it was not releasing the parliamentarians’ 2015 tax directory.

The parliamentarians’ tax directory has tax details of all members of the Senate, National Assembly and provincial assemblies. The sources said that FBR officials were busy in budget making so tax directory of parliamentarians and general taxpayers would be released after the annual budget. When contacted, spokesperson for FBR Dr Iqbal said the revenue department was collecting information from lawmakers to publish the tax directory. “Some are filing their income tax returns manually and others are filing online. So, we will publish the tax directory as soon as we get complete information from them,” he said. He said that general taxpayers’ directory would be published after the voluntary tax amnesty scheme.