RTO Karachi launches field survey to identify potential taxpayers

KARACHI: The Regional Tax Office (RTO) Karachi has launched field survey of commercial centres and main markets in the city to identify potential taxpayers, official sources said on Saturday.
The survey is part of the ongoing drive to broaden the tax base. Besides, conducting survey the RTO also held meetings with representatives of market associations.
The Karachi RTO-III has been assigned a target of 50,000 new taxpayers and for achieving the task, it held meetings with the markets under its jurisdiction.
The sources said the RTO discussed potential taxpayers issue with the market representatives, including Babar Market, Landhi; Mustufa Market, Landhi; Allahwali Market, Landhi; Liaquat Market, Malir; Malir Tanki; Saudabad Market, Malir; and Malir Cantt Bazar.
During the meeting, the tax officials pressed upon them the importance of becoming a taxpayer for those who were not filing tax returns against the income derived from their businesses.
The sources said the representatives had assured the RTO of persuading their members for paying their due liabilities and filing annual income tax returns.
Through field survey, the RTO was in process to detect the potential taxpayers as the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) communicated details of around 16,700 non-filers to the RTO. The RTO issued around 450 manual notices to the non-filers, but the same were surrendered on the directives of the board that notices would only be issued through the automated system.
Besides, the RTO issued notices to 50 industrial and commercial connection holders who paid Rs500,000 last year, but was not in the tax roll. Interestingly, the notices were returned back by the courier service due to incomplete addresses.
The sources said the zones of other two RTOs were also conducting the similar exercise for detecting the potential taxpayers.
The revenue authority has estimated to bring additional one million taxpayers in the tax net by June 2015.