FBR ponders introducing simplified tax return form for retailers

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is considering to introduce a simplified tax return form, probably in Urdu, for bringing at least 0.6 million retailers into the tax net during the current fiscal year.

Out of a total of 3.6 million commercial electricity connections, the FBR has estimated that there are around 2.3 million retailers, while the remaining 1.3 million are service providers such as tailors, barber shops, beauty parlours, etc. in the country. Out of 2.3 million commercial connections of electricity, around 2 million retailers must be brought into the tax net. However, all schemes introduced by the FBR in the last 30 years had failed to achieve the desired results. The traders’ leader, Naeem Mir, on Wednesday held a meeting with Special Assistant to PM on Revenues Tariq Pasha here at the FBR’s headquarters. The FBR Chairman, Asim Ahmed, along with his team, also participated in the meeting. Earlier, on the eve of the budget 2022-23, the government abolished the fixed scheme to accommodate the traders/retailers. Now the government is once again making efforts to bring retailers into the tax net. When FBR’s official spokesman and Member Inland Revenue (IR) Policy Afaq Qureshi was contacted for comments, he said that different proposals for the introduction of simplified tax forms were under consideration and the government would take the final decision after consulting with the Minister for Finance. However, the sources said that the FBR was facing difficulty in broadening its narrowed tax base. The government has committed to the IMF for bringing 300,000 new potential taxpayers into the tax net. So far, the FBR received a poor response as the Board secured only 2.5 million income tax returns till October 31, 2022 against the returns of 3.5 million it received in the last financial year. Thus the received returns have fallen by 28.6 percent so far.