Karachi: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) recently stated that the city’s marriage halls had been found to evade PKR 9.5 billion in taxes during the last four years, a news source reported. Prior to the announcement, the Intelligence and Investigation wing of the Inland Revenue Department had conducted physical surveys of the banquet halls in question; following which they unearthed the evidence of this payments-evasion.
The officials visited about 600 marriage halls and gathered data with regard to the charges of a single event arranged by the managements of these banquets. To this effect, the authorities found out that the marriage halls conducted a total of 1,743 functions on an annual basis.
Further, the survey results revealed the administrations of these marriage halls charged taxes during these functions on behalf of the FBR but did not deposit it in the government accounts. Based on the survey calculations, the marriage halls were supposed to pay PKR 9.5 billion in taxes but they only paid PKR 410 million in the last four years.
The taxation agency later issued notices to the managements of these marriage halls and directed them to clear their dues within a time frame of 15 days. It further ordered its Inland Revenue office to pursue real-time monitoring of marriage halls and banquets.
