K-P revenue up three times despite pandemic

Rs21 billion was collected in the last eight months

PESHAWAR:

Due to the successful tax reforms of the provincial government, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA) has doubled its annual revenue in the last financial year and its income is expected to triple by the end of this fiscal year.

The total annual revenue of KPRA for the financial year 2018-19 stood at Rs10.4 billion, Rs17.1 billion in the year 2019-20 and reached Rs21 billion in year 2020-21.

Similarly, KPRA has collected Rs21.1 billion during the last eight months of the current fiscal year whereas its annual revenue is expected to reach Rs30 billion by the end of this fiscal year.

This was revealed in the 10th meeting of the policy making council of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority held here on Thursday with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan in the chair.

The forum was informed that KPRA has made significant improvement in the ratio of filing and tax registration in addition to improvement in revenue collection. Around 78 per cent increase has been recorded in the ratio of filing during the year 2019-20 as compared to 2018-19 whereas 90 per cent increase has been made in filing during the year 2020-21. Similarly, during the last fiscal year, total number of KPRA registration reached 15,111 which was 11,630 during the fiscal year 2019-20 and 7,808 in the year 2018-19.

Provincial Minister for Finance Taimur Salim Jhagra, Minister for Law Fazal Shakoor Khan, Advisor to Chief Minister on Excise and Taxation Khaleequr Rahman, secretaries of finance, excise and law departments, managing director KPRA, private members of the council and other officials attended the meeting.

Briefing about the progress on reforms initiatives and other steps taken to facilitate the taxpayers, it was revealed that KPRA had started a number of new digital reforms to facilitate the tax payers including Restaurant Information Management System and Point of Sale System etc. Work was also in progress on the legal reforms and new legislation in order to strengthen KPRA and to make it a robust institution, adding that various acts would be enacted very soon including Sale Tax on Services Act and Infrastructure Development Act.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th, 2022.