ISLAMABAD, Oct 16: As many as 109,206,2 taxpayers have filed income tax returns till October 15 this year against the projected target of 120,000,0 returns to be received for the tax year 2004, indicating a decrease of 8.99 per cent.

Officials in the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) told Dawn on Saturday that the amount of tax paid with the returns filed by October 15 stood at Rs6.196 billion this year against Rs1.827 billion paid during the same period last year, showing an increase of 239 per cent.

The massive growth registered in the income tax payment with returns this year was due to the fact that tax authorities have collected advance income tax from the taxpayers, which would be adjusted against their income in the months ahead.

The tax authorities have received around 968,000 income tax returns this year by September 30 against the 700,000 filed last year, an increase of 38 per cent.

For realizing the target, the tax authorities have extended the filing of tax return date up to October 15 but still the filing of income tax returns were short of the projected target. The tax officials were hopeful that the returns would reach around the target by October 31, 2004.

Further analysis showed that in the Northern Region as many as 246,493 income tax returns were received by September 30, 2004 against 179,699 income tax returns received during the same period last year, showing an increase of 37 per cent.

The returns received at Eastern Region stood at 164,619 returns by Sept 30 this year against 119,219 returns during the same period last year, showing an increase of 38 per cent.

The filing of income tax returns at Central Region increased by 31 per cent to 203,404 tax returns this year against 155,276 returns filed during the same period last year.

And 342,246 tax returns were received by Southern Region by September 30 this year against 239,751 tax returns filed during the same period last year, showing an increase of 42.7 per cent.

The tax returns received by September 30 at corporate region stood at 11,077 against 6373 filed during the same period last year, showing an increase of 73.8 per cent.

The total number of tax returns filed at Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU), Karachi stood at 145 by Oct 15 against 134 filed during the same period last year. And the tax returns filed at LTU, Lahore stood at 84 by September 2004.

Further zone wise break up showed that filing of income tax returns up to October 15 reached at 278,376 tax returns at Northern Region; 185,131 tax returns at Eastern Region; 241,367 returns at Central Region; 375,100 returns at Southern Region and 118,54 returns at Corporate Region, respectively.

For increasing the filing of tax returns this year, the tax authorities spent about Rs40 million on its media campaign to motivate taxpayers to file their returns.

Moreover, the CBR spent Rs7.5 million on publicising the budgetary measures taken in the budget of 2004-05.