The National Board of Revenue has got poor response from individual taxpayers mainly because of political turmoil prevailing in the country as only 5.75 lakh taxpayers submitted their income tax returns till November 14, officials said. The number of income tax returns the revenue board received is significantly lower than that in the same time of the last fiscal year when more than 7 lakh taxpayers submitted their returns, they said.
The situation has made the NBR high-ups disappointed as the extended deadline for submission of income tax returns for the current fiscal year of 2013-14 will expire on December 1.
The deadline, however, may be extended if any unavoidable circumstances like hartals occur in this week, a high official of the revenue board told New Age.
‘We will not extend the deadline further if the things go normal though many organisations including income tax lawyers’ associations from various parts of the country have been demanding to do so,’ he said.
Almost every year the revenue board extends the time for submission of individuals’ tax returns. This year, the board extended the time twice until December 1, from original deadline of September 30.
Field officials of the revenue board blamed the political turmoil and economic slowdown prevailing in the country for such a depressing response of the taxpayers.
Officials said that existing political crisis and destructive activities that kept many people inactive from economic activities and decreased their earnings had made the taxpayers indifferent in paying taxes.
The country experienced two to three days uninterrupted hartals in last few weeks that caused great inconvenience for the taxpayers in filing income tax returns as they could not go out, they said.
Under this circumstance, the revenue board is planning to go for rigorous motivational campaign through newspaper advertisement and decided to keep its field
offices open on government holiday on November 30 (Saturday) to facilitate filing tax returns.
Officials said that they were collecting data related to returns submission from its field offices across the country.
They projected that the number of returns submitted till November 24 might cross 6.5 lakh.
By the end of current deadline, another good number of taxpayers may submit their returns, they said.
In the fiscal year 2012-13, around 13 lakh taxpayers submitted income tax returns.
Till Sunday, around 7.8 lakh individual taxpayers including 1.43 lakh new taxpayers obtained online generated taxpayers identification numbers (e-TIN) which are required for taxpayers in submitting returns, NBR officials said.
There are 17 lakh TIN holders in the country.
-With New Age input
