LAHORE, Sept 30: The filing of income tax returns under the Universal Self-Assessment Scheme remained much sluggish till late evening on Tuesday — last day for filing the returns.

However, officials were quite hopeful that the pace would pick up during the last couple of hours.

“The taxpayers will begin pouring in after confirming that the last date for filing the returns is not being extended. You would see a flood of taxpayers after 9pm news on television,” said a senior IT Department (Eastern Region) official while talking to Dawn.

“As you know well, our people are in the habit of doing things at the last moment. Hence, we are not much worried about the final count of returns,” an official at the Medium Taxpayers Unit (MTU) told this reporter.

It may, however, be mentioned that about 18,000 people had filed their returns till September 29 with the Eastern Region. Last year the total number of returns filed with the Eastern Region was 61,000. “We hope that the remaining 43,000 taxpayers would turn up before the time is out,” said the officials.

Similarly, some 40,000 people had filed their returns with the MTU that has some 70,000 salaried and 35,000 commercial taxpayers in its area of jurisdiction.