The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has restored blocked mobile SIMs for 103,000 individuals who have filed their tax returns.

This move comes as part of FBR’s ongoing efforts to enforce compliance with tax regulations.

The documents revealed that FBR has blocked a total of 265,000 SIMs belonging to non-filers of income tax returns.

In May, FBR established a Joint Working Group (JWG) comprising tax officials and telecom operators to implement the Income Tax General Order (ITGO) No 1 of 2024. This initiative aims to streamline the process of blocking SIMs for non-filers.

FBR had previously issued a list of 506,671 non-filers whose mobile phone SIMs were to be blocked immediately by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and telecom operators. Initially, there was reluctance from PTA and telecom companies to proceed with the blocking.

However, after multiple discussions with FBR, telecom operators agreed to block SIMs of non-filers in small batches.