Daily Times

KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Intelligence Wing has completed tax evasion investigations in eight large companies including Trade Key, worth billions of rupees, and has advised the concerned departments to initiate departmental proceedings, Daily Times has learnt on Friday.

Sources said that FBR had asked Directorate General of Investigation and Intelligence, Inland Revenue (I&I-IR), Karachi, to probe the alleged tax evasions by eight big private businesses. Investigation officers prepared a detailed investigation reports in this regard and sent it to the concerned regional tax offices (RTOs), advising necessary actions against them.

According to details, the FBR I&I-IR DG probed into financial matters of eight large companies including Trade Key Pvt Ltd, Danish Motors, Jan Japan, Salman Agencies, Tufail Enterprises, Karim Ghee and Oil Mills Pvt limited, Novelty Gift Centre and Adamjee Pharma Services.

Sources told this scribe that the RTOs of the FBR would send notices to the abovementioned companies for clearance of their outstanding dues, adding that FBR has sped up its tax recovery campaign. In the first phase, the notices would be sent to these companies while in the second stage, FBR would freeze bank accounts of tax defaulters.

In this list, some of companies are largest revenue-based companies of Pakistan. FBR had assigned the task to it’s I&I-IR wing to investigate financial and tax matters of these heavyweights including Trade Key, which is a global business-to-business (B2B) company and has presence in many countries.

Trade Key owns, manages and operate a website, which is considered one of the largest international electronic marketplaces in the world for both exporting and importing countries. It connects traders with global whole sellers, buyers, importers and exporters, manufacturers and distributors in over 240 countries. The I&I-IR DG has sent the investigation report of Trade Key to the RTO-III.

Moreover, the probe over alleged tax avoidance by Danish Motors, an authorised dealer of Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited, has been completed by the intelligence wing of FBR and the investigation report has been sent to
the RTO-I.

Similarly, another biggest auto dealer, Jan Japan Motors, which is the biggest name in Japanese used cars importers, had been under investigation for some time. The investigation report of Jan Japan Motors, including details of short-levied tax money, has been sent to RTO-II.

Salman Agencies, one of the biggest suppliers of cotton yarn for weaving, denim, towels, hosiery and polyester yarn to top textile units of Pakistan, is also involved in Dubai Real Estate business. The investigation report has been sent to RTO-I.

Karim Ghee and Oil Mills Pvt limited is one of the biggest names of food and beverage industry. The investigation report of the company has been sent to the RTO-II by the intelligence wing of FBR.

Similarly, investigation reports of Novelty Gift Centre, Adamjee Pharma Services and Tufail Enterprises have also been sent to the RTO-II by the said department of the tax authority.