80,000 file tax returns in 1 week as Pakistani govt blocks SIMs

The Pakistan government’s efforts to increase the number of tax filers by blocking their SIMs has started showing results.

Sources from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) informed Nukta on Tuesday that around 236,000 sims had been blocked since the federal budget announcement, which granted it authority to block the SIMs of non-filers.

These non-filers were people who had filed tax returns in the past but had stopped doing so in recent years.

The sources said that out of the 236,000 blocked SIMs, 76,500 had been unblocked, which meant these people have now filed their tax returns.

Overall, the number of filers on the Active Taxpayers List have risen by 80,000 in the span of a week.

This has taken the total number of filers in Pakistan to 4.92 million from 3.35 million in March of this year.

The Pakistan government has set a target of collecting Rs12,900 billion in revenue in the current fiscal year.

Of this amount, Rs11,112 billion will be collected through tax, according to an FBR document.

Last year, tax collection amounted to Rs9,252 billion.

Meanwhile, the government has set a target of a tax-to-GDP ratio of 9.5% in the current fiscal year compared to 8.5% in FY24.