The Regional Tax Office (RTO), Lahore, has collected Rs 49.820 billion up to 30th June, 2009 under income tax, sales tax and Federal excise duty, showing an overall increase of 26 percent over the last year. According to sources in the Lahore RTO on Thursday, collection of Rs 38 billion has been made under direct taxes from July 2008 to June 2009 as against last year's collection of Rs 31.675 billion, showing an increase of 20 percent.
They said sales tax collection was Rs 10.800 billion as against Rs 7.298 billion for the last year, registering an increase of 48 percent, whereas, the Federal excise collection was Rs 1,020 million as against collection of Rs 484 million for the corresponding period, showing an year on year increase of 111 percent. Despite an economic slow down, the sources said, the current financial year witnessed a revenue increase of 20 percent under direct taxes, which was quite encouraging.
It is worthwhile to mention that the current demand of Rs 2,156 million has been created through audit of selected cases, which is 353 percent higher than that of last year - a phenomenal increase by all means. They said that effective monitoring of the withholding taxes resulted in an exceptional increase of 21 percent as compared to corresponding figures of the last financial year.
The sources said that Lahore RTO undertook many initiatives with reference to withholding taxes. In particular, transaction of government departments and corporate giants were subjected to detailed scrutiny. They said that increased vigilance helped recover an amount of Rs 1.219 billion, which was either short deducted or was deducted but not deposited.
The Lahore RTO also launched a campaign to enforce the returns from the non-filers, they said, adding that notices for filing of income tax returns for the tax year 2008 were issued to as many as 76,000 taxpayers, which helped enforced 12,000 returns this year.