A 40% increase in the number of tax filers

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has received close to 40 percent more income tax declarations in the tax year 2019 compared to last year.

The FBR received 22.85 million tax returns as of January 29 this year, compared to 16.55 million returns submitted in the year 2018.

It is to be noted that in order to facilitate the people, the filing date for the tax year 2019 has been extended four times in a row.

The FBR received 27 million statements for the tax year 2018, the highest in the history of the Federal Board of Revenue.

One of the goals set for Pakistan under the World Bank-funded project is to increase the number of people submitting income tax declarations to 35 million by 2023.

Spokeswoman FBR Dr. Hamid Atiq Sarwar said that the date for submitting returns was extended to facilitate people.

It added that it is expected that more people will submit tax declarations before the deadline.

He added that the big challenge for the FBR now is to cross last year's tax margin.

In addition, up to January 29, the FBR received 21.3 million returns from the salaried and non-salaried classes.

Similarly, 59,243 returns were received by the Association of Persons (AOPs).

Submitting tax returns on behalf of companies is not so encouraging as so far only 35,200 companies have filed tax returns.

The total number of companies registered with the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan is one lakh 5 thousand 4 hundred 7, which makes it clear that the level of compliance with the filing of returns in the corporate sector is very low.

An official statement issued yesterday called for all taxpayers to submit tax returns before January 31.

It further said that all persons with a house of 500 square meters and a carriage of more than 1000 cc must submit tax declarations.

The statement added that all commercial and industrial consumers of gas and electricity must be on the list of active taxpayers.

In a separate statement, FBR identified steps to ease taxpayers, FBR helpline is a free, fast and reliable service that is committed to providing the best services to the public.

So far in January, 24,200 people have lodged complaints through the helpline, most of which were resolved without delay, while only a few technical complaints took some time to resolve.

In addition, the number of complaints sent by email is 14,967, out of which 12,110 were resolved immediately while the remaining 2,834 complaints were resolved after seeking assistance from the relevant wings. has been