Taxmen hunting for 7 lakh manual TIN holders
NBR field offices have started sending reports
The National Board of Revenue is looking for nearly seven lakh taxpayers who held the now-invalid manually-issued TINs but are yet to sign up for the new 12-digit ones despite the online system being live for over two years now.
Prior to the introduction of the online registration system, the NBR cleansed its manually-issued taxpayer identification number (TIN) database and found that only 17 lakh of the 32 lakh TINs were active.
Of the 17 lakh, only 10.43 lakh have so far re-registered to obtain the 12-digit TINs, according to the tax administrator.
The revenue authority has now instructed its field offices to trace these 10-digit TIN holders who have not re-registered yet based on the addresses they have provided, an NBR official said.
The field offices have started sending reports to the headquarters on the issue, he said.
The tax administration introduced the online TIN registration system in a bid to gradually move towards an electronic tax payment system and reduce taxpayers' hassles.
The NBR initially offered a six-month timeframe for old TIN holders to re-register and get the 12-digit TINs. It extended the deadline for re-registration several times later.
However, all the old TIN holders are yet to respond.
On the other hand, 6.94 lakh new taxpayers have signed up online to get fresh TINs, according to the NBR.
Taxmen linked the non-response of old TIN holders to various factors.
It may be that a section of the old TIN holders did not sign up online as they are still without taxable income, said a deputy commissioner of a field office.
Some might have obtained TINs only for land registration or for business but later did not feel the need to submit returns, he said.
But it appears that taxpayers, who file tax returns regularly, have already re-registered online for TINs, he said, citing the total number of tax returns submitted annually.
Last year, nearly 12 lakh taxpayers filed their returns, the number being less than 1 percent of the population -- a figure which taxmen and policymakers believe is below the actual number of people with taxable income.