Despite the government offering an amnesty scheme and radically increasing tax rates for non-filers,the number of income tax return filers increased by only 1% in the tax year 2015, according to a recent report.
The total increase of 10,745 filers came solely in the individuals’ category since the number of companies and Association of Persons (AOPs) filing their annual income tax returns declined during the year.
These results also put a question mark over claims of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that claimed in an October 2015 report that the initiative of broadening the tax base was moving in the right direction, the report says.
Leading economists took to social media to criticise the failure of FBR and the anti-growth policies of the Government.
@81shaz @etribune @dmazubair @nadeemhaque @econofpak
Where are tall claims of FBR of achieving wonders?— Dr. Ikramul Haq (@DrIkramulHaq) September 18, 2016
@DrIkramulHaq @81shaz @etribune @dmazubair @econofpak been saying for decades taxes as priority no 1 is bad policy. Growth must come before
— Nadeem Haque (@nadeemhaque) September 18, 2016
Under the $6.2-billion programme, Pakistan was supposed to bring in 300,000 additional people in the tax net by serving them tax notices.
The number of income tax filers stood at 1.064 million in the tax year 2015 as against 1.053 million of the previous year, according to the FBR.
In a population of about 200 million, only 3.7 million are registered taxpayers in the country.
Out of total 3.5 million registered individuals as of June 2015, only 991,538 filed their tax returns – up by 12,686.
The tax amnesty scheme was availed by 9,090 traders , against the official aim to bring one million.
As against 157,268 registered AOPs, as many, as 44,539 AOPs filed their returns – 1,704 less than even the previous year.
Similarly, against the registered 57,186 companies, only 28,031 of them filed their returns. As many as 237 companies that were filing their returns earlier became non-compliant in the tax year 2015. The FBR did nothing about them, the report claimed.
