ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will not further extend the date for filing tax returns after March 15, a senior official said.
Member FATE and FBR spokesman Dr Mohammad Iqbal told the sate-news agency that the government will not further extend the last date of filing the return and after the expiry of the date the FBR will start charging 0.6 percent withholding tax from non-filers besides sending them notices.
He added that now computerised national identity card (CNIC) has been made as tax number and no non-filer could deceive the tax collecting authority as their transactions would be detected from the CNIC. He once again called upon the non-filers to take benefit from the Voluntarily Tax Complaint Scheme (VTCS) and file their returns within the due date and pay their due taxes for the economic prosperity of the country.
Dr Iqbal said that FBR has realised Rs.13.5 billion withholding tax on transactions from non-filers. He added so far 0.922 million taxpayers have filed their returns and expressed the hope that this figures would further increase.
The FBR spokesman said that the Board collected revenues of Rs 1,836 billion during the current fiscal year up to March 7, witnessing an increase of 19 percent over collection of same period of the last year. The revenue collection during the same period last fiscal year (2014-15), stood at Rs 1547 billion, he added.
Giving the breakup figures, he said that an amount of Rs 708 billion has been collected in the head of Income tax, which witnessed an increase of 17 percent as compared to the collection of Rs 605 billion during the corresponding period of last year.
Similarly, the collection of sales tax witnessed increase of 16 percent during the period under review by going up from Rs 712 billion last year to Rs 826 during the current year up to March 7,the sources said.
Likewise, the Customs Duty collections during the period were recorded at Rs.244, as compared to the collection of Rs.183 billion, showing positive growth of 31 percent during the current year. The Federal Excise collection has also increased by 4 percent by going up from Rs.97 billion last year to Rs.101 billion during the current year, the sources said.
An official in the Board said that the overall tax collection has increased when compared to the last year, and expressed the hope that the tax collection target fixed for the current fiscal year would be materialised.
