KARACHI: The Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) has urged Finance Minister Asad Umar to remove punitive Section 182A of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001.

In a letter to finance minister, PTBA President Abdul Qadir Memon claimed that the section has become an impediment to increasing the total number of taxpayers adding that the number of active taxpayers in 2017 stood at 1,792,630 but after the introduction of Section 182A on May 22, 2018, the total number of returns filed in 2018 fell to 1,552,287.

Under the section, individuals who failed to file their returns within the due date will not be included in the Active Taxpayers List.

He said that insertion of this section serves no purpose other than imposing double penalty on the existing taxpayers for the same offence, which is against the Article 13 of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2019