Salaried Class Make Highest Tax Contribution, Retailers and Landowners Fall Short

Only 270,000 (8.7 percent) of 3.1 million retailers across Pakistan filed tax returns during the previous tax year, paying just Rs. 34 billion. Meanwhile, the salaried class paid Rs. 375 billion in taxes during the period in review, a figure expected to rise to Rs. 450 billion in the current fiscal year due to higher tax rates. Exporters contributed Rs. 80-90 billion last year. However, they have now been shifted to the normal tax regime. Meanwhile, the Agriculture Income Tax (AIT) paid by large landowners was just Rs. 2 billion. More on registered retailers; of the 416,000 shopkeepers, approximately 269,000 filed returns and paid Rs. 33.98 billion in taxes. In key regions, such as Karachi and Lahore, the number of return filers and their contributions varied significantly. In Karachi’s Corporate Tax Office (CTO), 2,477 filers paid Rs. 1.15 billion, while in CTO Lahore, 1,807 filers paid Rs. 507 million. The largest contributions came from Lahore’s Regional Tax Office (RTO), where 41,454 return filers paid Rs. 7.115 billion in taxes. Smaller contributions were seen in regions like RTO Multan, where 21,727 filers paid Rs. 1.293 billion, and RTO Peshawar, where 13,547 filers paid Rs. 1.687 billion in taxes.