The Senate was informed on Wednesday that over 3.39 million people have so far been issued national tax numbers (NTNs), and only 810,000 have filed their income tax returns during the current year. In a written reply, Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh said that the number of income tax filers had drastically reduced to 1.6 million in 2009 and only 810,000 people filed their returns by the end of this year.
State Minister for Finance Salim Mandviwala said that tax evaders not availing amnesty schemes will face major penalties such as inclusion of their names on the Exit Control List (ECL), cancellation of passports and identity cards and seizure of bank accounts.
Similarly, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) issued 3.17 million NTNs during the past fiscal year, but only 1.5 million people paid taxes, the minister told the Senate. Manviwala also claimed that a large number of businesses and individuals, who were regularly filing their income tax returns, were now avoiding their legal obligations by either under-declaring or were incorrectly declaring their assets and incomes.
TERRORISM INCIDENTS Minister of State for Interior Imtiaz Safdar Warraich said that 1,997 incidents of terrorism took place in the country during the past year in which 1,684 people had been killed and 4,227 more had been injured.
The incidents included 593 bomb blasts, 306 explosions of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), 252 mine explosions, 187 missiles, 261 rockets, 159 hand-grenade attacks, 132 attacks on law enforcement agencies, 58 sectarian killings and 49 suicide attacks. He said NADRA would soon start issuing computerised arms licenses.
PIA LOSSES Senator Abdul Nabi Bangash of Awmai National Party (ANP) termed Pakistan International Airlines the most unreliable mode of travel, saying Daewoo - a private bus service - was safer and more reliable than the national flag carrier.
"PIA's fleet is in such a condition that if you board a plane for Karachi from Islamabad, you will be transported to Lahore...this is how the things are moving in PIA, which used to be one of the top airlines in the 60s and 70s," he lamented.
Defence Minister Syed Naveed Qamar, however, urged lawmakers not to "oversimplify the matter" and said that the situation would soon start improving and the airline would soon become financially viable.
According to him, PIA suffered cumulative losses of Rs 42.4 billion till March 2008, which surged to Rs 141.3 billion till September this year. Attributing losses to inadequate freight, soaring fuel bill, rupee-dollar disparity, cash flow problems, high expenditures on repairs and maintenance and mismanagement, the defence minister said that as many as seven international routes had been terminated, adding that if things improved, the airline would again start operating on these routes. He said that PIA intended to start flights on four new routes, including Karachi-Salalah, Quetta-Kandhar, Karachi-Dubai-Najaf and Karachi/ Lahore-Barcelona-Chicago.
POOR PR CONDITION Minister for Railways Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour said that railways suffered an average loss of Rs 1.4 billion a month in 2007-08, which increased to more than Rs 2.58 billion this year. Bilour said discretionary powers of various railways functionaries to allow free travelling to passengers had been suspended from the beginning of this year because of excessive losses.
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