FBR to get bank account holders details by Feb
The era of accountholders secrecy has officially come to a close in Pakistan as banks all set to share their client financial transactions details with tax authorities by the end of current month, officials said on Saturday.
Banks will provide a bulk of information of financial transactions made during the first half of the current fiscal year following a landmark agreement signed November last year between tax department and financial institutions to check suspected undocumented money in the banking channels.
"Banks would provide details of transactions made during July-December 2019/2020 to the FBR (Federal Board of Revenue) by January 31, 2020," an official at Karachi's Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU) said. "Details of accountholders, who made transactions, including cash withdrawal, deposits and payment through credit and debit cards etc will be provided to the FBR."
The FBR and Pakistan Bankers Association (PBA) on November 27, 2019 signed a landmark agreement that enabled the tax department to access real-time information of transactions made through the banking system.
Sources in LTU Karachi said the tax authorities would be able to detect large number of potential taxpayers through examination of data provided by the banks. The volume of banking transactions had increased substantially during past few years, they added.
It is worth mentioning that the deposits in the banking system increased to record high of Rs14.63 trillion by the end of December 2019 as compared with Rs13.35 trillion in the same month of the last year, according to statistics released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).