The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) had settled cases amounting to Rs 7 billion during the last fiscal year by taking against over 1,000 firms and individuals.
The government had frozen bank accounts, transactions of assets and transactions of individuals and firms besides resorting to legal action to speed up the recovery of the outstanding revenue during the last fiscal year.
“Continuing the similar actions taken last year, we have set a target to settle outstanding revenue amounting to Rs 15 billion from thousands of taxpayers in this fiscal year,” Tanka Mani Sharma, director general of IRD, told Republica.[break]
The government is still to recover around Rs 36.15 billion from different taxpayers from across the country in the form of VAT, income tax, excise duty and sales tax, which was in practiced before VAT was introduced.
The amount that is yet to be settled include Rs 7.35 billion as VAT and Rs 28.80 billion as income tax, excise duty and sales tax.
“We are in a position to recover half of the total outstanding dues without following any court procedure,” said Sharma.
Number of tax payers with revenue dues to the government increased to 70,000 in 2012/13 compared to around 60,000 in 2011/12. Around 36,000 of them have tax liabilities of Rs 20,000 each. Similarly, around 400 have tax liability of more than Rs 4 million each. Likewise, the number of taxpayers with revenue dues worth over Rs 10 million each is estimated at around 100.
Amid mounting pressure to bring down the volume of unsettled revenue, IRD has already directed offices under its command to come up with annual target of settling dues along with measures to be taken to speed up actions against the tax evaders.
“We will implement the revenue settlement plan by seeking clear targets in terms of number of tax payers and amount to be settled from all IRD offices,” added Sharma.
IRD has been investigating around 1,000 VAT evasion cases involving over Rs 10 billion. Some of these cases are under administrative review, under initial investigation while some others are in the Revenue Tribunal.
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