Tax officers trained on how to avoid litigation

To enhance capacity of its staff Khyber-Pakthunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA) arranged a week-long training workshop on comparison of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sales Tax on Services Act 2022 with sales tax laws of the rest of the three provinces.

Officials of KPRA Collectorate, Directorates and Regional offices took part in the training workshop arranged with the financial assistance of USAID-funded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Mobilization (KPRM) Activity at PC hotel Peshawar.

The aim of the training workshop was to enhance the skills of KPRA officers for their routine day-to-day work to minimize the risk of litigations.

The trainers worked on show-cause notices served by the KPRA officers, identified flaws in the notices and worked on assessment orders drafted by the KPRA officers along with maintenance of order sheets to leave no margin for litigations.

Along with comparison of K-P Sales Tax on Services Act 2022 with the sales tax laws of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, the trainers also discussed international best practices in sales tax regime. Officials of KPRA who took part in the training workshop thanked USAID KPRM for providing them the opportunity to learn from experts in the field of litigations.

“The training workshop was needed for the uplift of KPRA staff skills in their routine workings. There were weak points in our show cause notices and assessment orders due to which our orders were set aside by appeal forums,” said Assistant Collector Waqar Ahmed in his remarks regarding the training workshop.

“The training will help in improving our show cause notices, assessment orders and maintenance of order sheets where there were weaknesses and these weaknesses were exploited.

Now our working will leave no weak points to be exploited in litigations,” said Inspector Imad Ali. The participants were given training completion certificates at the end of the workshop.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2022.