Tax Zone 'E' to drop 4,000 cases of business entities

The Tax Zone 'E' of the Regional Commissioner of Income Tax (RCIT) Southern Region is to drop 4,000 tax cases of business entities not operative for more than five years. The Zone administers over 24,000 tax cases in leading market areas, including Tariq Road, Zaibunnissa Street, Bahadurabad, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulistan-e- Jauhar, Star Gate, Malir, Araam Bagh etc. The RCIT sources at the Zone told Business Recorder on Thursday that the old and redundant cases were being weeded out to pave the way for the introduction of a new functional based tax system under the modern regional tax offices (RTOs) being set up in the Southern Region.
They said that the cases were being dropped under the policy announced by the Central Board of Revenue (CBR), which had decided that cases relating to business entities non operative for over five years should be withdrawn.
Most of the cases belonged to shops either closed down or shifted to other areas to start business under new registration.
In its efforts to bring new taxpayers in the net, the Zone 'E' staff booked 3,900 new taxpayers. The information about the new tax incumbents was gathered from the utility organisations and car manufacturers and the new National Tax Number (NTN) issued by the department.
The Zone paid Rs 131 million refund during the current year, which is 145 percent more than the refund paid during the same period last year.
Priority has been given to small refund seekers amounting to Rs 10,000. All pending refund claims would be cleared by the end of this month.
It hopes to achieve revenue target of Rs 1,015 million compared to the target of Rs 936 million fixed for last year.
The Zone has stepped up efforts to collect advance tax from the taxpayers having income over Rs 0.2 million. Over Rs 66 million are expected to be collected under this account.
The Zone 'E' is deprived of its due share in the withholding tax because the tax challans have no mention of the NTN code of the Zone.
It received Rs 605 million as withholding tax until April this year compared to Rs 520 million received up to April last year.