Faisalabad Region taxpayers: 3,522 newly-hunted not paid a single penny in 2010

The analysis of income tax returns for the Tax Year 2010 made a startling discovery, showing the efficacy of some Regional Tax Offices (RTOs), as 3,522 newly-hunted taxpayers of Faisalabad Region have not paid a single penny with the returns in 2010.
It is learnt on Monday that the FBR has compiled a report on the enforcement and compliance during 2010-11. The analysis of the income tax returns showed some interesting data reflecting meagre amount of payment of taxes at some leading RTOs, which is an abnormal trend. At the same time, some RTOs have failed to detect even a single potential new taxpayer under the enforcement drive during first quarter of 2010-11. On average basis, the per capita tax payment comes to Rs 1,249 reflects serious level of non-compliance with lack of enforcement measures by the field formations. The analyses of the income tax returns for the Tax Year 2010 further disclosed that out of newly discovered taxpayers, the number of compliant taxpayers is below to the mark.
According to the FBR report, on the direct taxes side, a small number of returns has been enforced vis-à-vis number of non-registered non-filers identified as out of 70,635 non-registered persons identified returns have been filed by 5,655 persons only. Tax paid by these new taxpayers is Rs 7.065 million, which gives per capita tax payment at a meagre Rs 1,249. Strangely, 3522 new taxpayers of RTO, Faisalabad, have not reportedly paid any tax while 1,207 new taxpayers of RTO, Lahore have reportedly paid Rs 0.114 million as income tax. The bulk of payment of tax by new taxpayers is from RTO, Karachi where 584 new taxpayers have paid tax at Rs 5.791 million. The RTOs Quetta, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Lahore-II, Multan, Rawalpindi and Sialkot have not identified even a single non-registered non-filer of income tax return. The trend of these RTOs reflects some serious problems at the policy level of the FBR, which failed to check the non-compliant taxpayers.
The report further said that the RTO, Faisalabad has reportedly failed to identify even a single non-registered non-filer though it has reported, as mentioned above, filing of 3522 returns by the new taxpayers.
The FBR data of non-registered and non-filers of income tax returns for Tax Year 2010 showed that number of non-registered taxpayers identified during July-September (2010-11) are 70,635; number of new taxpayers registered on National Tax Number and Sales Tax Registration Number (STRN) are 11,541; number of taxpayers e-enrolled are 13,028; number of returns received from new taxpayers are 5,655 and amount of tax paid by new taxpayers stood at Rs 7.065 million.
The performance of direct taxes for Tax Year 2009 revealed that on the Direct Taxes side 131,411 registered non-filers for Tax Year 2009 have been identified so far out of which 85,875 have been notified during the current year while level of compliance to notices issued for filing of returns is not very encouraging as only 29,103 returns have been filed in response to notices. It may be noted that upto June, 2009, out of 278,948 registered non-filers for Tax Year 2009, only 118,286 had been notified while returns had been filed by 25,051 taxpayers, the FBR report added.