Jun 21, 2019: The government on Friday launched two web-portals, containing information about the assets of around 53 million people, with an objective to facilitate citizens to know about what of their data was available with the government and make corrections accordingly if required.
This was stated by State Minister for Revenue, Hammad Azhar and Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Syed Shabbar Zaid while addressing a press conference. Top officials from FBR and National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) were also present on the occasion.
Hammad Azhad congratulated FBR for being successful in data integration process, which he said the past governments had failed despite tall claims during the past decade.
He said that it was initial data and would be enriched with the passage of time, adding that currently the data was based on property, bank accounts, utility bills, travels while the FBR had also done plaza mapping to data collection.
Speaking on the occasion, Shabbar Zaidi, however clarified that this information would not be base for any tax assessment as its main objective was to inform the people what of their asset information was available with the government so that they may correct their information. “The Information has nothing to do with taxability,” he clarified.
The Chairman said that the portal would be helpful for people as they might know what information was available with the government and could correct their return filing data if incorrect.
Secondly, he asserted, it had been made fully secure and no other person can access information, adding that if needed, the security could be further enhanced. The ultimate objective of the portals is to bridge the gap and provide information to the people at their doorsteps, he added.
The portals are foolproof and only genuine individual could access his/her personal asset information as the questions to be generated by the system would be based on the personal information of the individual, he added.
He said the information available on both the portals—one created by NADRA and another by the FBR itself— could be obtained by following the login process and after replying to some system generated questions.
The NADRA portal could be accessed by paying fees of Rs500 however, the FBR portal could be accessed by sending individual CNIC No to 9966, after which a system based code would be generated and sent on the mobile phone of the user which could be utilized for accessing the FBR portal.
He said that this was initial information that had been put on the portal and the NADRA and FBR would keep on updating it. He said that the FBR website had been made simple and was developed keeping in mind the low literacy rate.
In addition, the portal is centralized to reduce human intervention and ensure that nobody could temper or misuse it.
Information of both filers and non-filers would be available on portals.
To a question, he said that the last date of Asset Declaration Scheme would not be extended as Pakistan was going to enter into International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, the board of which is scheduled to meet on July 3 to consider three year Extended Fund Facility Programme.
To another question, the Chairman said that FBR did not write letters to the bank account holders having over 0.5 million amount in their accounts and clarified that the banks at their own had written letter to trace out Benami Accounts.
APP
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