Benefits of paying income tax in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has urged people to file their income tax returns at the earliest to take advantage of numerous facilities offered by the government for active tax payers and to avoid disadvantages of being non-filers.

For the facilitation of people, the authority has already extended the deadline for filing income tax return to December 15.

 Comparing the advantages and disadvantages of being tax filer and non-filer, source in FBR said that immediately after filing income tax returns, the name of the filer would be enlisted among the active taxpayers.

Whereas, they added, in case of failure in filing tax returns by due date, the taxpayers would have to wait for one whole year to become active taxpayer.

Similarly, tax filers would have to pay only half of withholding tax as compared to the tax being paid by non-filers.

A non-filer can not purchase any property that is valued overRs five million whereas active tax payers are not barred from purchasing any property.

Furthermore, the importers would have to pay eight percent tax(Rs 160,000 on Rs two million) on import of raw material whereas the tax filerspay only 5.5 percent (for example Rs 110,000 on Rs two million) on import of raw material whereas non-filer exporters would have to pay nine percent duty i.e (Rs180,000 on export of goods worth Rs 2 million) on commercial exports.

However, the filers pay only six percent duty (Rs 120,000 on export of goods worth Rs two million) on their commercial exports.

Likewise, non-filers will have to pay 20 percent tax on their dividends (company''s profit) against the 15 percent tax paid by active taxpayers.

Sources further informed that non-filers pay 15 percent tax on profit of banks and saving scheme against the 10 percent tax paid by filers, whereas the tax filers pay 4.5 percent duty on supply of goods to government, and companies as compared to 9 percent tax paid by the non-filers.

On amount of contracts, the non-filers pay 15 percent tax against 7.5 percent tax paid by the filers and active tax payers pay 15 percent tax on prize money of prize bonds whereas non-filers pay 25 percent tax on the same.

Similarly taxpayers pay 12 percent tax on commission amount whereas non tax payers pay 15 percent tax on the same.

On annual token of vehicles, filers pay Rs 800 to 10,000 while non-filers pay Rs 1200 to Rs 30,000tax, whereas on registration of vehicles, tax filers pay Rs 15000 to Rs 250,000as withholding tax while non-filers pay Rs 25000 to Rs 400,000. On cash withdrawal of over Rs 50,000, tax filers pay 0.3 percent tax against 0.6 percent tax paid by the non-filers, whereas filers pay nothing on bank transactions (cross cheque, pay order, and demand draft) while on-filers pay Rs 600 as tax on each bank transaction.

Furthermore, on property transfer active tax payer pay only one percent tax against two percent tax paid by non-filers, and tax filer pay two percent on total amount of purchased property while non-filer pay four percent onthe same.

The non-filer pay 10 percent tax on auctioning by government and other companies whereas non-filers pay 15 percent on the auction of goods of government or other companies.