Excise dept to set up help desk

KARACHI: Sindh Excise and Taxation would set up a help desk at SITE Association of Industry to facilitate member industries in the matters of property, professional and motor vehicles taxes, Secretary Atif Rehman of the department announced on Tuesday.

Addressing the members of the association, he said that last year, property tax was transferred to the local government, and the department and staff will guide and train them till 2024. The Excise and Taxation Department is only a collecting agency, which transfers all revenue to the Sindh government’s account.

Responding to a query about calculation of property tax, Rehman said that the property tax calculator is available online on the website. He agreed with members’ suggestion that minimising human interaction in this matter would yield better results.

SITE Association of Industry president was of the view that SITE Ltd being the owner of SITE Area does not get its due share from property tax to carry out necessary maintenance and upkeep, and requested the same to be taken up by the secretary at relevant forums.

On the matter of infrastructure cess, he mentioned that approximately Rs30 billion have been collected in the first quarter alone (July-September 2023) in the account of Sindh Infrastructure Development Cess. At this, SITE president emphasised the need to spend some money on the improvement of infrastructure in the area.

Earlier, SITE President Muhammad Kamran Arbi highlighted issues being faced by members of the Association related to property tax payments, professional tax payments and motor vehicle tax etc. He appreciated online availability of property tax challans and stressed the need to remove technical issues in the online system. Further he stressed on the need for removal of human interaction to make tax collection transparent.