Daily Times

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has said that the number of return filers reached 2.9 million for tax year 2020 by May 01, 2021.

The FBR said that last year the number of income tax return filers for tax year 2019 was 2.6 million on the same day, which shows a growth of 12 percent.

An amount of Rs50.6 billion has been paid along with return for tax year 2020 as compared with Rs33.1 billion paid last year, showing an increase of 53 percent.

The FBR has also released information about tier-1 retailers who have been integrated with point-of-sales (POS) systems. According to the information, 10,583 sales points have been integrated with the point of sales linked invoicing system. According to the official figures, the FBR collected net revenue of Rs3,780 billion during 10MFY21 exceeding the target of Rs3,637bn by Rs143bn. This represents a growth of about 14pc over the collection of Rs3,320bn during the same period last year.

According to FBR the improved revenue performance is a reflection of growing economic activities despite facing the challenge of the third wave of Covid-19. However, in the closing days of April, revenue collection slowed down considerably as measures to fight the pandemic were put in place. Collections in May and June would be affected in case fighting pandemic reduces the space for economic activities, the FBR observed.