ISLAMABAD, April 22: Only 22,531 taxpayers out of a total 536,088 non-salary taxpayers have shown an annual income of more than Rs350,000, which indicates that most of the taxpayers have understated their income in tax returns filed this year.
Well-placed sources told Dawn on Thursday that the preliminary analysis of 536,088 income tax returns of non-salary taxpayers filed this year with the income tax department across the country had mostly understated their income to around Rs30,000 per month.
The analysis was carried out of income tax returns captured at the Centralized Data Entry Centre (DEC), Islamabad, recently established by the CBR as a part of restructuring of the tax administration. The total number of income tax returns captured at the DEC stood at 966,014. This included 429,926 salary tax returns and 536,088 non-salary tax returns.
These 22,531 taxpayers, who showed annual income of more than Rs350,000, had included in their returns also incomes from property, business and interest. According to further analysis of the data, 480,000 taxpayers out of a total 502,000 non-salary taxpayers have shown their income below Rs350,000 across the country.
The sources said most of these people who live in posh localities across the country did pay very high residential utility bills, children education bills, vehicles expenses, rent of accommodation, household and personnel expenses. "And all this they cannot do within a monthly income of Rs30,000."
Of these 480,000 taxpayers, 69,748 have declared their annual income at Rs80,000 in the tax returns filed this year; 177,490 taxpayers between Rs80,001 and Rs100,000; 140,802 taxpayers between Rs100,001 and Rs150,000; 50,520 taxpayers between Rs150,001 and Rs200,000; 21,724 taxpayers between Rs200,001 and Rs250,000; 10,823 taxpayers between Rs250,001 and Rs300,000; and 6,878 taxpayers between 300,001 and Rs350,000.
According to the sources, in case of proper assessment and audit of these taxpayers it was expected that the current revenue would increase manifold. Interestingly, only 1,113 taxpayers have shown their annual income above Rs2.5 million, out of 22,531 taxpayers in their tax returns.
Further analysis of 22,531 tax returns showed that 4,621 taxpayers have declared their income between Rs350,001 and Rs400,000; 3,221 taxpayers between Rs400,001 and 450,000; 2,462 taxpayers between Rs450,001 and Rs500,000; 3,010 taxpayers betweenRs500,001 and Rs600,000; 1,911 taxpayers between Rs600,001 and Rs700,000; 1,321 taxpayers between Rs700,001 and Rs800,000; 1,037 taxpayers between Rs800,001 and Rs900,000; 723 taxpayers between Rs900,001 and Rs1,000,000; 1,197 taxpayers between Rs1,000,001 and Rs1,250,000; 684 taxpayers between Rs1,250,001 and Rs1,500,000; 587 taxpayers between Rs1,500,001 and Rs1,750,000; 178 taxpayers between Rs1,750,001 and Rs2,000,000 and 466 taxpayers between Rs2,000,000 and Rs2,250,000.
According to the sources, the CBR had established an income tax information tracking system to identify those people who should be in the tax net but were evading taxes, which would be initially installed at Lahore.
With the help of this software, the sources said, all the information would be compared with the NTNs numbers so that unregistered persons are identified. These people would then be registered with the department following the issuance of letters instead of any notice to them, sources added.
