ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has expressed concerns over lower than expected tax payment with return despite significant increase in return filing, a report said.
A FBR report said that the trend for filing of income tax returns had not been satisfactory in Pakistan.
Keeping in view very low compliance, FBR had initiated a Broadening of Tax Base (BTB) drive few years back, which had not started paying dividends in shape of growth in the number of filers.
The income tax returns which were just 1.5 million in Tax Year 2016 have crossed the two million mark first time in the history of FBR.
During Tax Year 2017 the number of income tax filers reached to 1.9 million and in Tax Year 2018 2.2 million.
During TY 2018 the number of return filers increased by 17.1 percent or 316,526 in absolute terms.
This performance in terms of number of returns is satisfactory but payment with returns has a meager growth of 3 percent, which is the matter of concern.
The desk audit of filed returns can be helpful increasing the amount paid with returns.
