KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue has collected the highest amount of income tax — more than Rs425 billion — from Karachi in 2018, data released by the government in the sixth tax directory of parliamentarians said.

The tax directory, which also contained the share of provinces as well as major cities and their markets, was released by the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Finance Dr Hafeez Shaikh in Islamabad on Friday.

According to the data collected by the FBR on the basis of income tax returns filed by salaried and non-salaried individuals, companies as well as Association of Persons (AOPs), the government had collected Rs209bn from Karachi alone followed by Rs204bn from Islamabad and Rs180bn from Lahore in the financial year ending June 30, 2018.

The income tax collected from Karachi’s five districts — Central, East, West, South and Malir — is mentioned under separate heads.

It said Rs114bn tax was collected from Karachi-South; Rs34.09bn from Karachi-East; Rs29.97bn from Malir district, Rs28.89bn from Karachi-West and Rs9.05bn was collected from Karachi-Central in the head of income tax.

Former senior bureaucrat and tax consultant Dr Shahab Imam told Dawn that the FBR released data of only income tax and it “does not include all federal taxes including sales tax, customs and federal excise duties, etc”.

He said that the amount of income tax collected from Karachi was much higher if the amount received from all city districts was added into the main tally.

The tax collected from other two provincial capitals — Peshawar and Quetta — was Rs13.63bn and Rs10.05bn, respectively.

The share of Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Multan in the tax collection was Rs35.17bn, Rs16.26bn and Rs12.77bn.

Collection from major Sindh cities

The FBR data said Sindh topped the list of provinces/regions that contributed highest share of income tax — 44.91 per cent — followed by Punjab (34.99pc), Islamabad Capital Territory (14.77pc), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (3.54pc), Balochistan (1.67pc) and Gilgit-Baltistan (0.12pc).

The authorities had collected Rs3.57bn from Sukkur, Rs99m from New Sukkur while the share of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-City and Latifabad was Rs2.5bn, Rs1.5bn and Rs1.02bn.

An amount of Rs1.01bn was collected from Thatta, Rs652 million from Mirpurkhas, Rs573m from Larkana, while a meagre amount of Rs89,406 was collected from Shaheed Benazirabad. However, Rs271m was collected from Nawabshah.

An amount of Rs262m was collected from Badin, Rs91m from Naushahro Feroze, Rs335m from Sanghar, Rs257m from Jacobabad, Rs266m from Tando Adam, Rs133m from Tando Allahyar, Rs173m from Matiari and Rs270m was collected from Tando Mohammad Khan.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2020