Comprehensive measures in progress to enhance tax net: FBR official

PESHAWAR: Chief Commissioner (Inland Revenue) Regional Tax Office (RTO) Peshawar, Zafar Iqbal Khan has said that in consultations with the trading community comprehensive measures have been initiated to enhance the tax net.

Addressing an online open court here on Thursday, he said that due to the survey of various markets 65364 new tax payers have been registered on tax-roll till the end of February 2024 beside the filling of voluntarily tax returns by 21600 individuals, which he termed a positive trend and encouraging progress towards the promotion of tax culture in the country.

The Chief Commissioner said that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has taken a major step for looking into the tax related matters of some specified big industries and their directors and a Large Taxpayers’ Zone (LTZ) has been established in Peshawar to facilitate taxpayers at their door-steps.

Highlighting the performance of RTO Peshawar, he said that a hard target of the collection Rs.162 billion was fixed till February. However, due to hard work of Zone Commissioners and their subordinate staff not only the target was achieved, rather a revenue of Rs.164 (2 billion surplus) was collected and deposited in the national exchequer. .

The Chief Commissioner said that the achievement of tax targets is not possible without the cooperation of taxpayers and he considered them as the real strength of the tax collecting agency.

He said that the joint efforts of FBR and taxpayers will bring improvement in the economy of the country and take it a forward to make progress by leaps and bounds. He said full and timely payment of taxes is inevitable for the economic stability of the country.

The Chief Commissioner also took stern notice of the complaint of a taxpayer regarding an alleged delay in some tax amnesty related matters and directed the Zonal Commissioners to disposed of the complaint within the stipulated time period under the law to save the tax payers from unnecessary concern and financial losses.

He said that the resolution of the genuine problems of taxpayers are included in his priorities and urged that taxpayers through online open courts, direct meeting or can submit their problems, complaints and proposals on 0310-8133800 through whatsapp. He assured that problems and complaints submitted by the taxpayers would be addressed in letter and spirit.

Speaking on this occasion, Commissioner Peshawar Zone, Dr Farooq Jameel said that consumers should demand FBR coded receipt of purchase from Point of Sales (POS), so the tax charged from the buyers is deposited in the national exchequer.

Commissioner Corporate Zone, Fazal Malik and Commissioner Withholding, Syed Khalid Shah informed the taxpayers regarding legal procedure of the levy of advance tax and withholding tax.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024