Tax and benefit: First meeting of PMC held at CM House

KPRA urged to implement measures to cover shortfall in sales tax collection

PESHAWAR: The first meeting of the Policy Making Council (PMC) of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA) was held at CM House in the city on Friday.

According to a handout issued by the CM’s Secretariat, the meeting was chaired by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and attended by various cabinet members.

Speaking on the occasion, Excise and Taxation Secretary Israr Ahmed said the newly-constituted body will formulate policy guidelines for KPRA on tax administration, planning, reforms and the budget.

“All policy initiatives will be binding on the authority under the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Finance Act 2013,” read the handout.

For implementation

During the meeting, Khattak lauded KPRA’s efforts to streamline the sales tax system and directed the authority to take consistent steps to achieve tax collection targets fixed for the new financial year.

“[Khattak] said measures proposed by PMC to cover the shortfall in sales tax collection during the transition period must be implemented,” stated the handout. “We plan to extend support to KPRA in this regard.”

Taxing services

According to the handout, KPRA has started collecting sales tax on services and has broadened the tax net by including 37 more services within it.  “The number of service providers who were brought under the sales tax net by KPRA has risen to 1,354,” stated the handout. “At the end of the previous fiscal year, we had only 933 taxpayers. The financial contribution of the new taxpayers remains Rs0.931 billion since July 2014.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2015.