Hollow increase |
THE FBR claim that the growth in tax return filers in recent years signifies a broadening of the tax base is belied by the increasing numbers of ‘junk filers’, who pay zero taxes. The fact that nearly two out of every five persons filing their returns this year declared ‘nil taxable income’ shows how misleading it is to equate the rise in the number of tax returns with the expansion in the tax net. This also clearly indicates that the addition in the number of actual taxpayers has been far less than claimed by the FBR. The practice of nil-filers is witnessed across three main categories: individuals, associations of........