LAHORE, Nov 26: The collection of direct taxes in the country has gone up by 3.8 per cent during the first four months (July-Oct) of the current fiscal year over the same period last year, say Central Board of Revenue officials.

The officials told Dawnhere on Monday that the overall collection taxes, on the other hand, had come down by five per cent in the same period as compared to last year.

The officials attributed the increase in the collection of the direct tax to the tax and property survey initiated by the CBR in May, 2000.

They claimed that the collection could jump up even higher if the third phase of the survey —- stock checking —- could be completed in the country.

The officials admitted that the number of the tax returns filed across the country this year had fallen down to 995,000 from last year’s 1.062 million. However, they quickly added, some 95,000 new returns had been filed this year. They claimed the number of returns filed in Lahore, where the survey had made a lot more progress than other parts of the country, had registered an increase of 10 per cent over the last year. On the other hand, the number of returns filed in Karachi had come down by over 80,000. Same was the case with interior Sindh. Besides, they explained, the number of old taxpayers in the country had also reduced because of “downsizing” in banks and in the public sector as a result of which thousands had lost their jobs.

The officials said the CBR was computerizing the details obtained by it through the tax survey. They said they had already computerized details provided in 1.1 million tax forms out of 1.6 million received by it so far. They said the computerization of the survey forms had enabled the sales tax authorities to net 32,000 new enterprizes who had not registered themselves under the sales tax law before. Similarly, the officials claimed, they had issued 274,000 new NTN numbers on the basis of the survey.