FBR Chairman Reveals Plan to Go After Pakistan’s Richest to Recover Trillions in Unpaid Taxes

Pakistan’s economic team has unveiled new structural reforms to recover trillions in unpaid taxes from top income earners after years of fiscal slippage. At a joint press conference in Islamabad, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Rashid Mahmood Langrial revealed that the country’s income tax gap stands at Rs. 1.7 trillion, with Rs. 1.2 trillion owed by top income earners alone. He said the FBR’s focus was now on enforcement rather than new taxes. He further ruled out any emergency taxation during the current fiscal year. Langrial said Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio had increased by 1.5 percent this year while income tax filers grew by 18 percent to 5.9 million. The FBR’s share in revenue rose from 8.36 percent to 10.33 percent, and the overall revenue-to-GDP ratio is expected to climb by 5 percent in the next three years, with provinces contributing 1.5 percent. He said the FBR had been freed from political interference and was now targeting compliance among top earners with the help of security agencies to close the trillion-rupee tax gap. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said Pakistan’s macroeconomic stability had improved and the government was shifting from short-term fixes to structural reforms in tax, energy, and pension systems. He said the reforms were designed to consolidate recent gains and sustain long-term growth under a whole-of-government approach backed by support from China, the US, and Gulf nations.