ISLAMABAD: After an unsuccessful voluntary registration push for the Tajir Dost Scheme (TDS), the Federal Board of Income has claimed that retailers’ registration reached 17,000 in six main cities throughout the drive that entered its twenty second day, official sources informed Daybreak on Thursday.
The voluntary registration incentivised merchants and wholesalers to register into the tax framework by the April 30 deadline. Nonetheless, lower than 100 had been enrolled beneath the scheme.
A senior tax official informed Daybreak on Thursday that since Could 1, tax officers have begun speaking with retailers to encourage them to register. The push has had actual advantages, with registration reaching 16,175 as of Could 22.
In response to the official, greater than 1,000 merchants have been registered within the tax system each day prior to now two weeks.
The breakdown indicated that Karachi had probably the most merchants registered beneath the TDS, with 5,094, adopted by 4,204 in Lahore, 2,030 in Rawalpindi, 1,315 in Islamabad, 1,309 in Peshawar, and 785 in Quetta.
Solely 300,000 of an estimated 3.5 million retailers are actively submitting tax returns. The newly proposed scheme goals to convey the remaining 3.2m retailers in main cities into the tax internet.
Regardless of contributing 18pc to the gross home product, the tax contribution of the retail and wholesale sectors stands at a mere 4pc. The federal government has been striving for years to include this sector into the tax internet successfully.
Three totally different schemes have been proposed since 2019, however couldn’t be carried out resulting from an absence of political will and robust opposition from the buying and selling group.
Printed in Daybreak, Could twenty fourth, 2024