ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has been achieving a steady and significant increase in the number of income tax returns filers during the last two fiscal years.
The figures available with Customs Today show consistent increase in figures and percentage during the fiscal years 2013 and 2014, respectively.
The income tax returns are filed on yearly basis, not on quarterly basis and a comparative insight into the statistics reveal that number of income tax returns filed up to January 08, 2013 was 718217 in fiscal year 2012 and it rose to 771118 in next fiscal year 2013 while this further increased to 829222 in the current fiscal year 2014 by January 08., 2015.
These figures reflect a steady and persistent increase of 7.37% in 2013 and 7.54 in current fiscal year and an aggregate increase of 11.91% in corresponding time frame in last two fiscal years.
As per bifurcation, 669, 955 independent tax payers filed income tax returns, 32993 Association of Persons (AOP) and 15267 Corporate sector (COY) and total 718, 217 Tax returns of Fiscal year 2012 filed by January 08, 2013.
This figure increased by 7.37% in upcoming fiscal year by January 08, 2014, with a growth of 719878 tax returns filed by independents, 36301AOP and 14939 COY and total numbers of filed tax returns was 771118.
With further 7.54% increase in the number of filed income tax returns by January 08, 2015, the current fiscal year as777569 tax returns were filed by independents, 36533 by AOP and 15120 b by COY and total tax returns was 829222.
A careful analytical study of the category wise increase in the income tax returns filed by tax payers show that an increase of 7.45% was witnessed in the number of tax returns filed by independents in 2013 than previous fiscal year of 2012 as figure was 719878 while it was 669, 955 while in fiscal year 2014 this increase was 8.1% as figure reached at 719878
Similarly, there was an increase 10.02% in tax returns filed by AOP in fiscal year 2013 than previous fiscal year 2012 as number of filed tax returns in 2013 increased to 36301 whereas it was 32995 in 2012, however, it further increased by 0.6% in current fiscal year as number went up to 36533.
Moreover, in COY category, there was a decrease of 2.15% because figure dropped to 14939 in fiscal year 2013 from 15267 in 2012, however, it again gained an increase of 1.21% in current fiscal year because it went up to 15120.
On same issue a well placed source at FBR told this scriber that out of 829, 222 total tax returns 443,622 returns were manually filed which were being entered into FBR’s IT system ‘IRS’ while 385600 returns are e-filed.
“Notices for filing of returns are being issued phase-wise to non-filers. FBR is confident that by the end of the year the number of returns would exceed 900,000” the source said.
The source said that it had been observed that after the promulgation of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, there was a general impression that the judicial decisions given by considering the provisions of Repealed Income Tax Ordinance, 1979 have become redundant, which trended too precarious.
