KARACHI, July 26: The Southern Region of Income Tax collected Rs25.109 billion during 2004-05 compared to Rs22.469 billion the previous year, showing an increase of 15 per cent. Major chunk of the collection was affected through withholding tax and stood at Rs23.718 billion as against Rs20.577 billion collected a year ago. The high growth in withholding tax collection indicated the robust economic activity in the year under review.

Due to higher volume of imports the income tax, deducted at customs stage, surged to Rs426.738 million during 2004-05 from Rs36.157 million the previous year. Similarly there was five times increase in withholding tax on contracts under Section 153, which indicated large-scale development work was in progress. A total of Rs6.885 billion were collected under withholding tax as against Rs1.311 billion a year ago.

Another major development was the huge collection of withholding tax on salaried class under Section 149 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2002. Withholding tax collected at sources of salaried class increased to Rs7.075 billion from Rs946.661 million the previous year. This shows that the size of job market has also increased substantially compared to the previous year.

The Southern Region disbursed a record Rs1.138 billion during 2004-05 as income tax refund as compared to Rs592 million the previous year.

Regional Commissioner of Income Tax Southern Region Abrar Ahmed told Dawn that as per the directives of the CBR the region was under the process of liquidating the refunds which resulted in huge payment up to Rs1.138 billion during 2004-05 to 70,859 taxpayers compared to Rs592.564 million disbursed last year only to 21,063 taxpayers.

He further said that around 132,000 infectuous cases had been deleted from the records because most of these taxpayers might have expired/closed their businesses or even move out of the country.

He said the region managed to net 87,298 new taxpayers during the year under review against the target of 77,000 given by the CBR.

After creating a total demand of Rs153.477 million the region collected Rs101.534 million towards arrears and Rs51.943 million for current demand. Income tax collected out of dividend income increased to Rs64.229 million from Rs1.612 million, indicating that more positive results have been announced by the listed companies on the stock exchange.

There was sudden increase in collection of Capital Value Tax (CVT) which rose to Rs820.837 million in 2004-05 as against Rs119.345 million collected in 2003-04. A slight increase has been recorded in wealth tax collection at Rs5.515 million as against Rs1.429 million recorded a year ago. However, wealth tax had been abolished by the government but collection is being made from areas and on settlement of disputed cases.