RTO Lahore recovered Rs25m from T-1Rs in Feb: chief commissioner

LAHORE: Regional Tax Office (RTO) Lahore has made a recovery of Rs 25 million against the penalties imposed on Tier-1 Retailers in the month of February, said Chief Commissioner RTO Lahore Nasir Iqbal.

Talking to Business Recorder exclusively, he said, the penalties have been imposed for the failure of T-1Rs to integrate with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) system.

It may be noted that RTO Lahore had started monitoring sales of Tier-1 Retailers (T-1Rs), resisting integration with Point of Sale (POS) system. Monitoring teams were deputed on leading stores and bakeries.

According to the chief commissioner, the RTO Lahore has collected another Rs 12 million up to 10th of March. He said efforts are also afoot to enhance communication with traders instead of carrying with an adversarial relationship with taxpayers.

He said the RTO Lahore was pursuing 2700 T-1Rs for integration with POS system. The T-1Rs have back and forth linkages, which would be helpful in bringing potential taxpayers to the system at a fast pace, he said.

The chief commissioner said the objective of integration is to ensure of ease of doing business as well as tax collection through education of taxpayers by highlighting pros and cons of paying taxes accurately.

Nasir said the Board has made a policy shift by designating the role of internal ombudsman to field formations to resolve the issues of taxpayers instead of compelling them to approach the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) or higher courts for a relief.

“We are holding Khuli Kutchehris with this mindset over the last two years to remove reservations of taxpayers towards the initiatives of the Board”, he added.

He said the idea is to remove misconceptions of taxpayers towards their tax responsibilities, which has already resulted into a stuck up of Rs3500 billion of tax revenue in stay orders by the courts.

Nasir said he has clarified in his recent Khuli Kutchehri that wholesalers, retailers, importers, and commission agents fall under various categories of tax regime and everyone would have to integrate with the Point of Sale (POS) integration system of the Board after digitization of the tax system. At present, he said, T-1Rs are bound to get integrated with the system, as leakage of tax system would stay within the system from now onwards after stringent laws against money laundering activities.

However, he added that the Board is working on reducing physical involvement and discretion of tax authorities and the whole focus of the Board is to reach out the taxpayers through data available with it.

The chief commissioner said the draft of One Tax Code is also on the advance stage to amalgamate Income Tax, Sales Tax and Federal Excise Duty laws. Already, he said, the Board has harmonized federal and provincial sales tax to facilitate taxpayers in filing single sales tax return since last month. It would simplify the filing of return, he said.

He said the Board was broadening tax base through facilitation of taxpayers. In addition, he said, the Board was also in the process of developing a software application for filing of income tax returns through mobile phone. However, he admitted that software applications possess security issues therefore the Board was accepting filing of returns through its website (IRIS).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022