ISLAMABAD, Oct 1: Thirty-eight per cent more income tax returns were received by the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) by September 30 this year than received by the same date last year, a CBR spokesman said in Islamabad on Friday.

Spokesman M. S. Lal told reporters that 968,000 taxpayers filed income tax returns this year against the 700,000 filed last year. Since the total number of tax returns received by October 31, 2003 was 1.05 million, he expected the final figure for this year to be significantly higher, between 1.2 million and 1.5 million.

Mr. Lal said the amount of income tax paid with the returns filed by September 30 this year was Rs5.77bn, a 140 per cent increase over the Rs2.4 billion received by the same date last year.