How to Report a Fake FBR Invoice (2026): Where to Complain and What the Buyer Risks
Got a fake sales tax invoice? How to report it to FBR, the section 72D whistleblower reward, and the 20% penalty a buyer pays on unmatched input tax.
What this guide tells you, in plain words
Someone hands you an invoice. Something about it looks wrong. This guide shows you how to check it, where to report it, and what it costs you if you say nothing.
Two facts sit behind everything below. The law can pay you for reporting tax fraud. And it can charge you if you claimed tax back on a fake bill, even when you were the one who was fooled.
Every rule quoted here comes from the Sales Tax Act 1990, as updated to 30 June 2026.
First check, then report
Do not accuse anyone yet. Most strange-looking invoices are real ones filled in badly.
A genuine digital invoice carries two things. The first is an IRN (Invoice Reference Number — the unique number FBR gives every invoice it accepts). The second is a QR code, a square barcode your phone can scan.
Scan that QR code with FBR's Tax Asaan app. Or send the invoice number by SMS to 9966. Both are free and take under a minute. 'How to Verify an FBR Invoice by QR Code, Tax Asaan App or SMS 9966' walks through each route.
Next, check the seller is real. Put their NTN (National Tax Number — the number FBR gives a registered business) into FBR's own search. 'NTN, CNIC and STRN Verification in FBR Digital Invoicing' explains where to look.
Three results are worth reporting. The number returns nothing. The invoice shows different amounts on screen than on paper. Or the seller has no sales tax registration at all. 'How to Verify an FBR Digital Invoice' covers what each answer means.
If the check simply fails because the seller has not joined the system yet, that is not fraud. That is a business behind on the rules.
Where to report a fake invoice to FBR
Here is the honest answer first. FBR has no single button marked "report a fake invoice". You use one of three doors, and the door you pick matters.
The FBR helpline is the simplest. Call 051-111-772-772, or email helpline@fbr.gov.pk, Monday to Friday. FBR says every complaint gets a case number. Simple cases close in about 24 hours.
Your Commissioner Inland Revenue (the senior tax officer for your area) is the stronger door. Put it in writing. Section 21(4) lets the Board, the Commissioner or an authorised officer block the refunds and input tax of a person they have reason to believe is "issuing fake or flying invoices, claiming fraudulent input tax or refunds, does not physically exist or conduct actual business". That power sits with them, not with the helpline.
Do not use the PRAL support portal for this. That desk fixes integration and token problems, not fraud. Sending a fraud report there buries it. 'PRAL Digital Invoicing Helpline & Support: CRM Portal, FBR Helpline Numbers and What to Use When' sets out which desk owns which problem.
Send five things, and nothing more is needed to start. A copy of the invoice. The seller's name and NTN. The date and the amount. Your verification result showing it failed. And one line saying how the invoice reached you.
Keep a copy of everything you send, with the date. If your own return is questioned later, that file is your defence.
The reward: what section 72D actually says
Section 72D of the Sales Tax Act 1990 is titled "Reward to whistleblowers". It was added by the Finance Act 2015.
Sub-section (1), word for word: "The Board may sanction reward to whistleblowers in cases of concealment or evasion of tax, tax fraud, corruption or misconduct providing credible information leading to such detection of evasion of tax fraud."
Read the word "may". It is not "shall". FBR can pay a reward. Nothing forces it to. Anyone promising you a fixed percentage is inventing it.
Sub-section (3) lists four reasons a claim is refused: "the information provided is of no value", "the Board already had the information", "the information was available in public records", or "no collection of taxes is made from the information provided from which the Board can pay the reward".
Put plainly, your information must be new, private, and it must lead to real money being collected. A complaint about something already in the newspaper earns nothing.
Sub-section (4) defines a whistleblower as a person who reports concealment or evasion of sales tax and tax fraud "leading to detection or collection of taxes, fraud, corruption or misconduct" to the authority with power to act.
Sub-section (2) says the Board may prescribe the procedure by notification in the official Gazette, and set how the reward is shared out. So the amount is a matter of FBR's own rules, not a figure written into the Act.
What happens to the person who issued it
The penalty table in section 33 now carries an entry, at serial 29, for a registered person who issues a tax invoice "for a transaction which is simulated or fictitious, or for which no actual supply of goods or services has taken place". Simulated means staged: an invoice for a sale that never happened.
Four things follow, and they run in order.
The penalty is "equal to the face value of the simulated or fictitious invoice or invoices". Not a slab, not a cap. Write a fake invoice for Rs 4 million and the penalty is Rs 4 million. FBR's own Circular No. 01 of 2026, dated 11 September 2026, puts it as a penalty "equal to the value of simulated or fictitious invoice(s) including sales tax". So the tax on the invoice counts towards the penalty too.
After a show cause notice and a hearing, FBR places the person's name and registration number on a "publicly accessible simulated invoice issuers register" kept on its own system. Anyone can look them up.
Then comes the part that reaches their customers. Any input tax credit claimed by a counterparty on invoices from a person on that register "shall be reversed automatically and treated as inadmissible with effect from the date of listing". Automatically. No notice to the buyer is needed.
The name comes off the register only on full payment of the penalty and default surcharge, plus proof of compliance. Separately, section 21(2) lets the Commissioner suspend and blacklist anyone found to have issued fake invoices. 'Fake & Flying Invoices in 2026: Input Tax Denial, Invoice-Value Penalties and the Public Register' covers that whole ladder.
If you already claimed tax back on it, this is your bill
This is why staying quiet is not free.
Section 8(1)(d) says input tax on "fake invoices" is simply not allowed. Input tax is the sales tax you paid on purchases and subtract from what you owe.
Two neighbouring rules catch the same money. Section 8(1)(ca) blocks the claim where the supplier never deposited the tax with the government. Section 8(1)(caa) blocks purchases "in respect of which a discrepancy is indicated by CREST or input tax of which is not verifiable in the supply chain". CREST is FBR's own matching system. It compares what you claimed against what your supplier declared.
When that match fails, serial 30 of the penalty table applies. The buyer pays "twenty per cent of the unmatched input tax amount, in addition to reversal of the inadmissible credit and payment of default surcharge".
So a buyer who says nothing can lose three ways. The credit goes. A fifth of it comes back as a penalty. Default surcharge runs on top. 'FBR Digital Invoicing Penalties in 2026: Fines, Deadlines and How to Stay Compliant' sets out the rest of the penalty list.
The cheap fix is checking first. 'How to Check a Supplier Before Claiming Input Tax: FBR Invoice, ATL & Registration Checks (2026)' is a five-minute routine. Run it before you pay, not after. Every invoice with a verified IRN has already passed through FBR's system. 'Invoice Reference Number (IRN) in FBR Digital Invoicing' explains what that number proves.
Digi Invoice posts each sale to FBR and brings back the IRN and the QR code. Your own invoices are then never the ones a buyer has to doubt. Create a free account and post a practice invoice before you go live.
Difficult words in this guide
Whistleblower: a person who reports tax fraud to the officer who has power to act on it.
Simulated or fictitious invoice: a bill written for a sale that never took place.
Input tax: the sales tax you paid on your purchases, which you subtract from the tax you collected.
Default surcharge: an extra charge that runs on unpaid tax for the time it stays unpaid, like interest.
Blacklisting: an order that suspends a business's sales tax registration, so its invoices stop being usable.