Doctors get brief reprieve in RTO tax drive

The Regional Tax Office (RTO) Faisalabad has temporarily halted its enforcement drive against medical professionals, granting them short-term relief to voluntarily declare their actual income.

However, authorities warned that a renewed and more aggressive crackdown would follow if doctors fail to comply with the directives of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

Chief Commissioner RTO Shah Khan, while speaking to reporters at his office, said the ongoing drive was aimed at curbing large-scale tax evasion in the private healthcare sector.

He described the situation as "alarming," revealing that out of nearly 1,000 doctors registered with RTO Faisalabad, only around 400 had filed income tax returns for the financial year 2025.

Most of those declarations showed minimal annual income, despite evidence gathered by field teams indicating that many medical professionals were running highly profitable practices and charging hefty fees to patients.

Shah Khan said the enforcement campaign had been intensified across the RTO Faisalabad zone, which covers four districts, Faisalabad, Chiniot, Jhang and Toba Tek Singh.

As part of the drive, Inland Revenue Service (IRS) officers were deployed directly at the premises of private hospitals and clinics to monitor on-site operations. He termed this a significant shift toward real-time monitoring to address underreporting of taxable income in one of the country's most lucrative professional sectors.

Under Section 175-C of the Income Tax Ordinance, IRS officers were posted at dozens of commercial hospitals and clinics, including Prime Hospital and Faisal Hospital.