Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has launched a new “Lifestyle Monitoring Cell” with a 40-member team tasked with scouring Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to spot lavish spenders whose declared assets may not match their public displays of wealth.
According to Reuters, the monitoring unit has been established to address Pakistan’s chronic struggle to meet revenue collection targets and help achieve tougher goals set in this year’s International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed budget.
With one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in Asia, Pakistan has repeatedly turned to the IMF, entering nearly two dozen programs over the years. Fewer than 2% of citizens pay income tax.
According to the report the cell, formally set up this month, is mandated to “systematically monitor, scour and analyze data from major social media platforms” to identify individuals who flaunt wealth but are either not registered for tax or under-declare income compared with their spending and assets.
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The report says that the cell will build digital profiles of suspects, evaluate the financial backing of their lifestyles, and prepare reports that can feed into tax evasion or money laundering investigations. A central database of evidence, including screenshots and timestamps, will be maintained as part of the effort.
