Banks to share customers’ real-time data with FBR

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Pakistan Banking Association (PBA) have finalized modalities for sharing the depositors’ data.

The FBR on Thursday claimed officially that this long-awaited issue had been resolved. An official statement said the FBR and Pakistan Banks Association (PBA) had finally agreed on implementation modalities of Section 165 and 165A of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.

The banks will start providing information in respect of cash withdrawals, deposits, credit card payments and profit on debt to the FBR u/s 165 and 165A of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 throughIT solution developed by the FBR.

This technical solution will provide interface to banks through which banks will share the relevant information with the FBR in real time. The banks have agreed to share information with the FBR from 18.09.2020 by using interim IT solution developed by the FBR IT team.

Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Adviser to Prime Minister on Austerity & Institutional Reforms, played a key role in ironing out the long-outstanding issues between the FBR and banks. In August 2020, the FBR issued draft rules under the Finance Act 2020 for seeking information from banks about persons who deposited Rs10 million in account or more in a month or made credit card payment of Rs200,000 on monthly basis.

The profit on debt and particulars of account holders who have withdrawn Rs1 million or above in a month will also be shared with the FBR on prescribed forms. The government has brought amendments to the Finance Act 2020 with the approval of parliament on eve of budget for 2020-21.

The FBR has notified SRO 686(I) 2020 to issue draft amendments to the Income Tax Rules, 2002 to obtain information of account holders from the banks. The FBR has also asked banks to provide the following particulars of the account holders in the above said categories: CNIC, NICOP, passport number, NTN, name, title of account, resident/non-resident status, address, telephone number, account opening date, account number (IBAN), amount deposited in a month or amount of cash withdrawal during a month, amount of tax deducted and profession/business/occupation of the account holder.

The information required from the banks includes account holders’ deposits statement, credit card payments statement, cash withdrawal statement, profit on debt statement, and details of any information or data as required by the board from the banks.

Under the new rules for banks, the information, required to be furnished under Section 165A of the Income Tax Ordinance shall be provided by the reporting banking company, in the manner as specified in account holders deposits statement, credit card payments statement, cash withdrawal statement and profit on debt statement.

The information shall be provided by the reporting banking company as specified in a notice issued in terms of Section 165-A of the ordinance. Banking company officer shall be nominated by the reporting banking company not later than 30 days of coming into force of the rules contained in this chapter. The information required to be reported to the board shall be provided by the banking company officer to the FBR.

Every banking company officer shall furnish to the FBR monthly account holders deposits statement, credit card payments statement, and cash withdrawal statement as specified in Form A, Form B, and Form C, respectively, for immediately preceding calendar month within seven days of the end of the preceding calendar month.

Every bank officer shall furnish with the Board annual profit on debt statement as specified for immediately preceding calendar year within three months of the end of the preceding calendar year. Every bank shall furnish to the board any information and documents within the time allowed by the board.

Under the record keeping for due diligence procedures, the FBR has directed the reporting financial institutions to keep record of the steps undertaken and any evidence relied upon for the performance of the due diligence procedures and measures to obtain such records for at least five years after the end of the period within which the reporting financial institution must report the information required to be reported.

The annual domestic reporting date for filing of common reporting standards reports by reporting financial institutions shall be 31st of May each year.

The common reporting standard reports shall be filed on the AEOI portal on the FBR's official website in the CRS XML Schema prescribed by the Global Forum of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The records maintained under Common Reporting Standards Rules in Chapter XIIA of the Income Tax Rules, 2002 including rule 78K by the reporting financial institutions or any other record maintained by any other person under any law may be required to be furnished along with full and free access to any premises, place, accounts, documents or computers of reporting financial institutions by the FBR or any person authorised by the board to ensure compliance of Common Reporting Standards Rules in Chapter XIIA of the Income Tax Rules, 2002.

The Board may under the law compel assistance of any person including the State Bank of Pakistan, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, and any such organisation, body etc who holds such information that may assist the board to identify and classify reporting financial institutions, non-reporting financial institutions and excluded accounts, and ensure that their identification and classification is as per Common Reporting Standards Rules in Chapter XIIA of the Income Tax Rules, 2002.