Provinces decide to levy tax on oil tankers

PRA chief emphasises tanker operators’ tactics will not work in future

LAHORE: Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) Chairman Rahil Siddique said on Thursday that all four provincial tax bodies were on board to tax the powerful oil tanker operators and chalk out a strategy in that regard.

“They blackmail the federal government through strikes which brings the entire country to a standstill,” he said while talking to the Lahore Economic Journalists Association.

Such tactics would not work in the future, he emphasised and said a unanimous decision had been made to bring them under the tax net. “If the federal government protects them, then it will have to pay revenue to provincial governments,” he claimed.



Siddique said the PRA was striving to increase awareness of tax issues among the masses along with expanding the tax net. The most significant landmark was the addition of a chapter on taxation issues in the eighth grade textbooks, he highlighted.

“This move will show results in the long run since the next generation will be well aware of the importance of paying taxes for development of the country,” he added.

Siddique said the PRA had started tax clinics for specific businesses where owners and employees were informed about efficient ways of filing tax returns. They were also informed about adoption of technology and development of IT infrastructure to facilitate tax payments and return filing.

Highlighting the importance of tax literacy, the PRA chairman pointed out that majority of people wanted to pay taxes, but they became victims of unintentional tax avoidance and were unable to file returns due to lack of information about the formalities involved.

Replying to a question about a court petition that challenged the legality of provincial revenue authorities to collect some taxes, he argued that habitual tax evaders were behind the campaign.



“They will be defeated and the PRA will continue to add to their tax incidences,” Siddique said, adding once the court decided on the matter “these evaders would have to pay all the outstanding taxes.”

Talking about the restaurant invoice management system, Siddique said it was successfully operating in Lahore and Faisalabad. “Now, it will be implemented in Rawalpindi from December 2017 while Gujranwala and Sialkot will be next in line,” he said, adding implementation and expansion of the system was time-consuming.

“The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has failed to implement this system in Islamabad despite making efforts for years,” he claimed, adding now the federal authority had sought PRA’s assistance.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 6^th, 2017.

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