Collector Sales Tax and Federal Excise (H.Q) RTO, Ibrahim Vighio has informed business community that around 26,000 registered persons have not filed their tax returns. Speaking at a meeting of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on Tuesday evening, he said that there are around 48000 assessees registered in sales tax in the city.
He has sought the help from KCCI to update sales tax registered persons data. Giving example of non filers of tax return, he said that 600 persons have deposited their due tax in banks but did not file tax returns. He said that the department wanted to update tax payers' list and separate the names who were not filing tax returns. Chamber can help in updating list, he added.
Acting President KCCI, Mohammed Javed Bilwani said there are only about 90,000 registered tax payers in the country and a large number of potential tax payers are out of tax net, mainly because the GST has yet to emerge as a problem-immune scheme.
The issues like misuse of discretionary powers of the tax officials, misinterpretation of law, issuance of notices, black listing of registered persons, blockade of refunds etc, serve as deterrent, discouraging them from getting into the fold of tax net, and there is need to restore the confidence of the business community in GST scheme.
Referring to mandatory e filing of sales tax return, he said that except the medium and big size companies, most of the registered persons are not computer literate. The small-scale manufacturers, medium size importers and wholesalers neither have staff nor computer literacy to file the returns electronically.