The annual balloting carried out by FBR during the first week of January 2017, has selected 93,277 cases for Tax year 2015 audit. This roughly accounts for 7.5% of the total returns filled for the said tax year. The selected cases are from 03 forms of taxes; (a) Income tax, (b) Sales tax and, (c) Federal excise duty. These are further divided into 2 categories; (i) Corporate and (ii) Non-Corporate. Nearly 97% and 88% of the total cases selected are of non-corporate clients in the income tax category and sales tax category respectively.

To check if your name in the list of selected cases the best way is to visit the official website of FBR and search your name via your CNIC and NTN. Be careful to search through both CNIC and NTN. If you still need assistance you may wish to call at PATS and get assistance. If you see your name in the list that means you need to start working on the paper work as soon as practical. Waiting for the notice is not a bright idea to get started as normally the time window in the FBR notice are normally reasonably narrow. Use this time to your advantage and get your documents in order. Following are couple of quick tips to help you get ready for the audit.
1. Ask your banks for your one year complete bank statement ( financial year)
2. Get your tax certificates from your clients, banks or any other person who has withheld your taxes, if any.
3. Compile your list of additions and deletion in your assets portfolio, if any
4. Finally make sure that supporting documents to your declaration are ready and properly placed in a file.

Hopefully this will save you time and give you heads-up and create ease for you during audit proceedings.

(Article by Ubaidullah Javed- CEO)