July 14: There are four million taxpayers in the country. As per the 59th report released by the Office of the Auditor General on Wednesday, the number of taxpayers has reached 4.059 million till the fiscal year 2077/78 BS.    
Number of taxpayers of three groups—income, value added tax and excise duty has increased, reads the report. Of them, 1.577 million people have taken business permanent account number (PAN), 2.471 million have taken individual PAN and 9,998 have taken advance tax PAN.    
Number of taxpayers taking PAN for income tax has increased by 18.9 per cent in the fiscal year 2077/78 BS as compared to fiscal year 2076/77 BS. The number of people with PAN for income tax has reached 4.059 million with an increase of 645,717 this year.    
Likewise, the number of taxpayers towards VAT has reached 268,436 while 103,423 people have acquired excise duty license.    
As per the report, doctors, engineers, lawyers, auditors, artists, players, teachers have not acquired PAN and those who have taken PAN have not given their income details. -- RSS