KARACHI: The ratio of submitting tax returns is very low in Pakistan. According to rough estimates only 0.5 million people pay taxes regularly. Some leading businessmen and social personalities are avoiding to pay tax.
Sources told Customs Today that the Federal Board of Revenue is taking all possible measures to bring more and more people under tax net. For this purpose, the FBR has already directed all the Regional Tax Offices to prepare a list of tax defaulters. Now these RTOs are sending notices to these tax defaulters asking them to clear the outstanding dues at the earliest otherwise stern action will be taken against them.
A non-official organization Pakistan Apprell Forum who conducts on tax returns says that its always dangerous for a country where there people avoids to pay tax, because this practice always put a negative impact on any country’s economy. He said Pakistan among one of those country where tax payment ratio is very low and only 0.3 per cent of Pakistan are under tax net. While as compared with our neighboring country India where three crore people are paying tax regularly while in Pakistan only five lakh people are paying tax.
Pakistan Apprell Forum in its reports said that authorities did not take proper measures to enhance tax net from the last ten years .Government earned only 9.4 percent of GDP from tax, after passage of ten years the percentage remained the same.
So government have to borrow foreign loan to fill the gap between income and expenditures. This is the main reason that burden of loans on Pakistan’s economy is enhancing day by day and government is paying huge amount as interest on these loans which put negative impact on our national economy.
