ISLAMABAD: Amid clear instructions from the Prime Minister’s Office to broaden the tax base, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has so far expanded its tax base by 2.6 million filers in 2025, with potential evaders largely dodging the tax net.
Official data of the FBR available with The News shows that since 2018, the number of return filers has increased from 1 million to approximately six million by 2025. “However, there is a need to ascertain scrutiny of the data, as alone 2.6 million have been added to the list of filers in the year 2025, but largely the addition list consists of those who want to be in the Active Taxpayer List (ATL). There is still a large number of NIL/Null filers out of the total number of filers,” top official sources confided to this reporter on Monday.
When this reporter contacted Chairman FBR Rashid Mahmood Langrial for comments, he said the tax machinery had launched enforcement action against different potential tax evaders and brought them into the tax net. There is no magic to bring all potential evaders but the FBR is moving ahead in the desired direction, he added.
According to the official data, around 1.3 million new taxpayers registered by November 2025. The FBR has envisaged a plan for deeper and real time integration of third party data whereby the expenditure side data will be analyzed thoroughly in order to detect the potential tax dodgers.
The Prime Minister Office has tasked the FBR with collaborating with the Ministry of Information for launching a narrative building campaign for broadening the narrowed tax base. Out of over 240 million population, there are over 6 million filers out of which almost 30 percent are nil or null filers on annual basis.
The FBR established data sharing arrangements with both public and private institutions including provincial revenue authorities, banking institutions, utility companies, Nadra, FIA, AGPR, travel and educational institutions, professional licensing authorities, and other transaction intensive entities.
The information from these avenues is being consolidated through digital platforms such as Maloomat, TaxRay, and BTB dashboards etc but it is also evident that it becomes hard for the tax machinery to convert data into taxability because it requires a lot of spadework and going into minute details to impose tax on any individual or company.
The FBR has estimated that around 0.6 million potential tax dodgers are causing losses to the national exchequer on account of Income Tax front. The FBR has launched Lifestyle Monitoring Cell to identify those who are displaying luxurious lifestyle on the social media but paying negligible amount in shape of paying tax obligation into the national kitty. A compliance system has been developed to gauge participation in the economic activities whereby unregistered participation becomes harder, voluntary registration becomes path of least resistance and enforcement becomes targeted and predictable. The broadening of tax base can only achieve success whereby the system is governed by fair taxation rather than discretion powers. The FBR so far sent out around 0.6 million notices under Section 114 after identifying individuals through data analysis as all those were liable to file returns.
