PRA collects Rs10b tax in April

LAHORE:Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) has registered unprecedented spike in tax collection in Month of April registering an increase of over 70 percent from last year and collected Rs10.07 billion tax as compared to Rs5.9 billion of April 2020.

The PRA also able to perform well despite the economic activities are affected with ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The PRA in the first ten months of ongoing fiscal year has registered 37.2 percent in revenue generation. The PRA till April 2021 has collected Rs117.4 billion as compared to the corresponding period of the last year Rs85.5 billion.

According to the details available with The News, the restaurant sector registered the highest ever growth in month of April with 530 percent increase on year basis. In month of April 2021, the PRA has collected Rs236.479 million as compared to April 2020’s figure of Rs37.507 million only. The major spike in restaurant sector is also due to a relief package was given by the Punjab government to the sector last year when the country was hit by first wave of COVID-19. The PRA has given three months tax relaxation to the sector at that time. “Last year due to COVID-19 PRA had given a special relief to restaurants for three months in which it had deferred Punjab Sales Tax payments”, an official of the PRA said. On increase in revenue generation despite COVID-19 impact continued on the business and economies, he said that broadening of tax net, structured enforcement and stakeholder facilitation removed most of the bottlenecks for collection.

“The tax collection is a participative process for PRA. PRA believes that if the taxpayers’ problems are not resolved then it has a negative effect on tax collection, if we resolve their issues and accept to their genuine demands then it helps improve the collection”, he observed. The courier sector is the second-best performing sector during April 2021 showing a result of 126 percent increase from last year. The sector contributed Rs430.569 million to the provincial exchequer as compared to the last year of Rs 190.790 million.

The withholding agents generated Rs1.923 billion tax to provincial kitty in April 2021 registering an increase of 49 percent from corresponding period of April 2020 of Rs1.290 billion. Similarly, banking/non-banking/insurance sector contributed Rs1.367 billion with an increase of 42 percent from last year Rs962.048 million. The telecommunication sector remained the top tax contributing sector to provincial kitty on tune of service tax. The sector contributed Rs2.364 billion with a marginal increase of 4 percent from last year of Rs2.266 billion.

The franchise services sector registered an increase of 25 percent with tax contribution of Rs588.411 million from last year’s Rs469.660 million while manpower recruitment agents including labour and manpower supplies registered an increase of 26 percent and generated Rs281.023 million from corresponding April of Rs223.213 million.

The Chairman PRA Zainulabidin Sahi attributed the significant increase in tax collection to the vision of the Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht and the Punjab government for giving the right direction with a vision of generating favourable results. He also appreciated the efforts of the staff commenting that the country was going through the third wave of COVID-19 while the staff was doing untiring efforts to collect taxes.