Karachi and Lahore are poles apart in terms of contribution of registered traders in the national kitty as latter only deposited income tax to Rs 567.65 million as compared to Rs 30.87 billion collected from the traders of former in FY 2018-19.
The astonishing difference is also evident in the number of registered traders, retailers and wholesalers among two largest cities of the country.
Lahore, the second largest city of the country in terms of population, has only 3925 registered traders, who paid just Rs 567.65 million as income tax.
Sources said that FBR has released income tax details of traders, retailers and wholesalers from 92 cities in order to mitigate traders' agitation, who claimed to have been paying huge taxes and expressed resentment over new tax measures taken by the federal tax authority.
According to statistics released by FBR, over 85,000 traders are registered in Karachi, which is higher than the taxpayers registered in Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, collectively.
The Lahore's Anarkali market, which is said to be the biggest bazaar of Punjab provincial capital, has only 2096 registered traders, who paid Rs. 9426 as an average income tax.
The Lahore city has 3925 registered retailers and wholesalers only in four markets - Anarkali, Mall Road, Hafeez Center and Liberty - who contributed Rs 567.65 million in the kitty.
However, Karachi has over 85,000 registered traders, of them, 18,744 are high payers with the contribution of Rs 29.92 billion, out of total revenue collection of Rs 30.87 billion.
The textile city - Faisalabad - has only 2,266 registered retailers and wholesalers from Katchery Bazar, Rail Bazar, Anarkali, Chiniot Bazar and D-Ground. The total revenue collected from the traders of Faisalabad is not more than Rs. 141.71 million.
Similarly, Rawalpindi has 6580 registered traders, which is 2.31 percent higher than Islamabad, who contributed 43 percent more to the national kitty as compared to Rs. 1.092 deposited by the traders of Rawalpindi.
The FBR in its statistics further revealed that over 0.3 million traders from 92 cities are filers and their contribution in the kitty was Rs. 49.333 billion, of which, Rs. 30.87 billion was only collected from the traders of Karachi.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019