ISLAMABAD, Dec 25: The Central Board of Revenue has issued letters to around 24,000 corporate taxpayers, asking them to file the return of income or statement of final taxation for the tax year 2004 with the income tax department.

A senior CBR official told Dawn that the last date for the filing of corporate return was December 15, 2004 and these taxpayers did not file tax returns.

The letters were issued to only those corporate taxpayers who were registered with the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan but did not file any return of income or statement of final taxation with the income tax department.

The total numbers of companies registered with SECP under the companies' ordinance 1984 stood at 45,000, while the total number of national tax numbers (NTNs) issued to these companies so far stood at 22,000.

According to statistics, the corporate returns filed by the companies last year stood at 10,270. The statistics showed that even the NTN holders, which constituted 50 per cent, did not file their returns with the income tax department last year.

The official said the letters were issued to those companies which were registered only with the SECP but did not applied for getting NTNs from the income tax department. The letters were also issued to those NTNs holders who did not file their returns last year.