Income tax filers in the Northern Mariana Islands are expected to drop as the economy shrinks.
The Manager of the Compliance Branch of the Division of Revenue and Taxation, Elphidia Camacho, says it only expects 20,000 to 22,000 individual income tax return filers for tax year 2010.
He says thats compared with about 24,000 in 2009 and over 25,000 in previous years.
Mr Camacho says the closure of the garment industry is a major reason for the decline in the number of income tax filers.