PRIME Minister Imran Khan is interested in tax reforms. Income tax for individuals can be made easy by levying tax on taxable income without complex income tax returns and wealth statements.

Details required by these returns give an impression as if these are required for a NAB investigation. It must be realised that individuals do not have accountants to keep record of income and expenditure to fill in the returns. Consequently, this has to be cooked to satisfy requirements of the returns.

Therefore, it is suggested that a list of taxable income and tax rate be published for compliance by individual taxpayers which should be available at post offices on payment. Tax may be paid at any branch of the National Bank of Pakistan.

The computerised national identity card number indicated on the challan copy will automatically put the taxpayer on the tax net when remitted by the bank to Federal Board of Revenue.

M. Akram Niazi
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2020