ISLAMABAD: The statistics have dared to refute claims of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) about filers of tax returns as the number increased by only 8 percent in first six months of the current fiscal year and 38 percent increase in the category of filers were those who did not pay any tax, a local newspaper reported.
According to the report, 70 percent sales tax return filers were in the remaining in the “null” or “nil” categories and only 29.5 percent tax return filers had paid taxes in the current fiscal year..
On the other hand, the FBR on Thursday clarified news items published in a section of press about the actual number of tax returns filed in Tax Year 2019 and Tax Year 2018.
The board in a statement clarified that number of tax returns filed in Tax Year 2018 till February 28, 2019 were 1,695,560 whereas the number of tax returns filed in Tax Year 2019 till February 28, 2020 were 2,472,609 which showed an increase of 45 percent as compared to corresponding month in the last tax year. The board further stated that the date for filing tax returns were extended in Tax Year 2018 and the last date for filing tax returns was set as August 9, 2019.
FBR has further added that the total period from the last date of Tax Year 2018 till last date of Tax Year 2019 consists of almost six months.
This period of six months for Tax Year 2019 is comparably very short with that of Tax Year 2018, it said adding the number of tax returns 2,472,609 filed in six months for Tax Year 2019 shows great achievement of FBR.
The people continue to file tax returns to become on the active taxpayers list even after the last date but the returns can only be filed by paying surcharge after the set last date.
