The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) registered 5.215 million returns for the tax year 2024 until November 6, a 76% increase over the 2.959 million received during the same period previous year.
Last week, 86,035 returns with penalty payments submitted after the October 31 deadline were received by the FBR.
Until November 6, the tax payment with returns for the tax year 2024 was Rs132.259 billion, up 71.47 percent from Rs77.132 billion at the same period the previous year.
The FBR has prolonged the deadline to facilitate taxpayers’ filing of their taxes. The income tax ordinance states that tax returns must be filed by September 30.
The FBR received 6.695 million income tax returns in TY23. The data shows that from July 1, 2023, and November 6, the FBR received 1.346 million new returns. Between July 1 and November 6, 2024, 660,000 new return filers were enrolled by the tax authorities.
The main achievement of the FBR is the notable rise in the total number of returns compared to the previous year. But in TY2024, the situation of nil-filers drastically worsened. For one-time financial transactions or to benefit from reduced tax rates, zero returns are filed in order to be included to the Active Taxpayers List (ATL).
There were 2.051 million nil-filers between July 1 and November 6, which accounted for 39 percent of all returns filed. Thirty-five percent of the 1.036 million returns filed in the tax year 2023 were from 1.036 million nil-filers.
It was suggested that non-filers be barred from all financial and investment operations under the FBR restructuring plan, and that travel be restricted to Haj and Ziarat pilgrimages alone.
