Cell Phones Used to Track Non-taxpayers

Pakistan's Income Tax Department is planning to use cell phone records to track down tax evaders. Cell phone owners will be sent National Tax Number (NTN) forms to encourage them to register as tax payers. The Central Board of Revenue has a target of increasing the number of tax payers by 200,000 using this method over the next two years, but says that it will not aggressively pursue cell phone owners who claim not to be earning enough to pay tax - initially. There will be follow up letters for those who fail to return their paperwork.

There is a national threshold of US$1,400 before someone has to pay income tax, and the CBR is working on the assumption that anyone owning a cell phone is almost certainly earning over the threshold.

There are currently about two and a half a million cell phone users in Pakistan."

Posted to the site on 14th July 2003