Property tax returns date extended by 31st

LAHORE
Acknowledging the expenditure associated with Eid-ul-Azha and the likely difficulty for people to make funds available for paying annual property tax by the 30th September deadline, the CM secretariat has issued an ordinance to extend the date till 31 October for the year 2015.
Excise and Taxation (E&T) Punjab for the first time made such decision to facilitate people and now they would easily pay their property tax till the new amended date.
Punjab E&T Director General Akram Ashraf Gondal forwarded the request for the said changes in the date of tax collection to CM secretariat which was approved and implemented with immediate effect. The E&T has also launched its computerised tax collection system in the provincial metropolis and five other districts of Punjab including Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Rawalpindi and Multan.
In the first phase of computerisation of the property tax data for the above mentions six districts, the government spent 830 million rupees while the remaining 30 districts data will be computerised in the next phase in 2016.
Earlier, majority of the tax payers used to complain about the wrong tax assessment by the excise inspectors and it took more than three months to complete the notice and challan process of property tax by E&T but now it takes only one week to complete the entire property tax challan process under the one roof.
Now, no inspector can change the date and amount of the property tax on the challan as it is being processed and issued via computerised challan and no once could make any change on this computerized challan manually. The new security feature on the legal challan embossed with E&T logo will ensure the transparency in the excise property tax recovery as it would be processed via mail system and E&T Punjab has been issuing the challans via courier to the tax payers.
Talking to The News, Director General Akram Ashraf Gondal said that the department have been serving for the betterment of people since long and this practice will remain continue. DG Excise Akram Ashraf said that the department extended the one month duration for the tax collection after making necessary changes in law via special ordinance through CM Secretariat. People spend more money on Eid ul Azha and in view of their financial burden the date of annual tax was extended, DG Excise Gondal added.
Talking about the computerisation of property tax, Akram Ashraf said that people appreciated the computerisation of property tax collection and it also strengthened the people trust on E&T department. He added that via computerised tax collection system its transparency will be ensured and less resources and manpower will be utilised for this practice.