The Regional Tax Office (RTO), Karachi, has collected Rs 22,992.653 million income tax during the first four months of the current fiscal year (July-August 2007). Officials in the RTO told Business Recorder on Friday that the current collection was about Rs 138 million more than the set target of Rs 22,865 million.
The current collection of income tax was also Rs 1931.297 million more as compared to Rs 21,061.356 million in the same period of the previous fiscal. They said that the RTO had also received 55 percent more income tax returns till October 31, as against the last fiscal year. A total of 461,791 returns have been filed at the RTO by different categories of the taxpayers till October 31, 2006, as this number has increased to 715,398 returns.
According to the officials, the number of taxpayers for the category of retailers had also increased by about 83 percent. The taxpayers for the said category were 14,435 at the end of October 2006, which had now increased to 26,431.
Another big achievement by the RTO, Karachi, was done in the category of fixed taxpayer retailers. Only 14 of them had been registered with the five million turn-over at the RTO till the end of October 2006, they said. However, taxpayers in this category had increased to 1326 till October 31, 2007, they maintained.
The RTO officials were of the view that the increase in the number of taxpayers and more tax collections were the outcome of awareness campaign launched by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) last month. The campaign was aimed at increasing the number of taxpayers, especially in the sector of medium and small enterprises, retailers, salaried persons and associations of persons.
Some 50 Tax Help Kiosks had been set up in various parts of Karachi to help and educate people about taxation process in October 2007 in connection to the FBR campaign.