A taxing affair: Kiosks to be installed at 22 regional offices

People will now be able to assess different taxes through these facilities.

LAHORE: The Excise Taxation and Narcotics Control Department has planned to install kiosks at 22 regional offices across Punjab to facilitate taxpayers in assessment and issuance of challans.

The purpose of installing machines at the very entrance of regional offices of the ET&NCD was to provide taxpayers an easy way retrieve challan forms and assess different taxes, stated a document available with The Express Tribune.

It has been designed to minimise the interaction of taxpayers with the officials, reducing the chance of malpractice. However, at present, the facility is to download a challan form online.

These kiosks would be installed in 22 regional offices of the province. Five machines would be installed at regional offices of Lahore, while there will be one machine each in Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Multan, Khurahianwala, Dijkot, Wazirabad, Gakhar, Alipur Chattah, Kamoke, Qilla Didar Sing, Shujabad, Jalalput Pir Wala, Qadir Pur Rawan, Murree, Taxila and Gujar Khan.

The department is also computerising property tax records of 15 more districts of the province. Currently only six districts have a computerised record.

Some areas where the property tax record had been computerised, property challans were issued with an exclusive pin code. Taxpayers would retrieve the challan via the machine, type the pin code to assess the value and get a print of the challan. The challan would be submitted to the excise offices.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2017.