Karachi, which is considered the financial hub of the country has once again emerged as the highest tax-paying city in Pakistan.
The federal board of revenue released the data of the traders, retailers and wholesalers of the major cities.
According to the FBR report, the traders, retailers and wholesalers in Karachi, with only 52,808 tax filers, paid taxes of Rs 8,610,263,771. Lahore despite boasting 55,342 tax filers, the largest number of filers in Pakistan, only paid Rs 5,219,983,079.
Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Multan were the top five cities among the highest number of tax filers in Pakistan.
If we look at the data in terms of average, the traders of the capital city of Islamabad paid the highest average tax among major cities, paying Rs 14,950; whereas, traders in Karachi paid an average tax of Rs 12,091.
Meanwhile, the traders of Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city only paid an average tax of Rs. 9,651. Even the traders of Larkana and Haripur paid more tax with an average tax of Rs. 10,092 and 10,028 respectively.
Karachi also has the highest number of high payers [that paid tax of more than Rs 100,000] in Pakistan with 6,468 high payers, followed by Lahore that has 4,971 high payers and Islamabad with 1,688 filers respectively.
Among the market-based data of Karachi, six markets – Tariq road, Clifton, Goli mar, Saddar, DHA and Johar – were checked. These markets have around 85,020 filers and have paid Rs. 30.87 billion in taxes.
In Lahore’s four markets, which include Anarkali, Mall, Hafeez center and liberty, were checked. There were only 3,925 tax filers who paid only Rs. 567 million in taxes. Rawalpindi has five markets that have 6,560 filers, with tax payments worth Rs. 1.092 billion.
Faisalabad’s five markets have 2,266 filers who paid a tax of Rs. 141 million. Islamabad’s four markets, which include Supermarket, Blue area, F 10 Markaz and Jinnah super, have 6,428 filers, who paid taxes worth Rs. 1.93 billion
