The Corporate Regional Tax Office (CRTO) and Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) have joined hands under the tax broadening drive of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). A unique exercise of issuing notices to both industrial and commercial consumers, warning of supply disconnection in case they failed to get register with the FBR as an active taxpayer.
In phase-I, all the industrial consumers have been selected for issuance of notices. However, only those commercial consumers have been chosen in this phase who are utilizing 5kWh or above electricity each month. Later on, the rest of the lot would be selected under this drive and the number may rise to 400,000.
Lesco is the only Disco that has extended maximum cooperation to the CRTO to ensure implementation of the income tax law provisions. A meeting between Syed Nadeem Hussain Rizvi, Chief Commissioner CRTO, Lahore and Mujahid Parvez Chattha, Chief Executive Officer, Lesco was also held on 30th of August 2019 during which the timelines for completion of the exercise was decided. The Chief Commissioner extended full support to Lesco through the establishment of help desk at the customer service department Lesco for the facilitation of the consumers for the purposes of registration and updating of record.
Sources said as many as 457,000 out of 600,000 plus industrial and commercial connections were missing NTN number in their applications for electricity connections. The CRTO initiated an awareness campaign back in the month of June in coordination with Lesco. Special notices were issued to such consumers along with their electricity bills.
While a special line was added to the electricity bills for the industrial consumers, reminding that the unregistered consumers should get registered with the FBR before 31st July 2019. Lesco had also splashed it on its website used for retrieving electricity bills electronically.
Final notices have been issued to the selected consumers in phase-I to take action against those not complying with the legal requirements, particularly those of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
The CRTO sources clarified that the objective of this exercise is not to penalize the consumers but to make them part of the tax net, which is a responsibility of every citizen. Already, this effort has increased the number of taxpayers to 2.6 million from earlier 1.3 million.