Pakistan's income tax departmenthas served notice to 21 international cricketers for evading taxes of Rs.100million over the last two years.
The Dawn quoting senior officials atRegional Tax Office (RTO) in Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi, reported thatnotice has been served on Umer Akmal, Misbahul Haq, Kamran Akmal, Abdul Razaq,Mohammad Hafeez, Shahid Afridi, Younis Khan, Abdul Rahman, Asad Shafiq, TanvirAhmad, Azhar Ali, Imran Farhat, Rana Naveed-ul Hassan, Saeed Ajmal, TaufiqUmar, Wahab Riaz, Shoaib Malik, Umar Gul, Shoaib Akhtar, Sohail Tanveer andYassir Arafat.
The daily reported that this was the firstinstance when the income tax department has served notices to the cricketers,who enjoy celebrity status in the country.
The cricketers did not file tax returns andfound legal ways to pay less by fitting themselves in the category of lessertax liability.
"The investigation department hasalready compiled the tax profiles of 21 cricketers on the basis of informationcollected by the income tax intelligence directorate of the FBR. According tothe official, most of them paid tax at the rate of six per cent (minimum slab)which is a violation of the income tax ordinance. In accordance with theirincome they should have been in the higher tax slab," the daily reported.
Officials said that an amount of Rs7.5million will be recovered from Umar alone.
The daily also said that Naveed-ul-Hassan,Riaz, Shafiq, Tanvir, Arafat and Kamran's name didn't figure on the tax roll.
Seven players, Farhat, Ajmal, Taufiq, Umer,Rehman, Gul and Tanveer didn't even file tax returns in 2010 and 2011 despiteearning huge amounts.
Misbah, Hafeez, Younis, Akhtar in 2010 onlyfiled and an employer's statement but nothing after that.