KARACHI, April 5: The Sindh Excise and Taxation Department, which has eight taxes under it, has pushed up the collection of these taxes by 45 per cent in eight months (July-February) of the current fiscal year and all indications point towards a rise of about 50 per cent in final counts by June 30. “We are confident of mopping up more than Rs9 billion of these eight taxes by the end of June 2005 as against a collection of Rs6.03 billion in 2003-04,” M.A. Jalil, adviser to Sindh government on Taxation and Excise, told a press conference on Tuesday. He said that his department was responsible for the collection and administration of infrastructure cess, motor vehicle tax, excise duty and fees, professional tax, cotton fee, hotel tax, property tax, and entertainment duty.
In July-February these eight taxes generated revenue of over Rs5 billion. In addition a number of taxpayers who are in dispute with the department and involved in litigation have deposited Rs554 million bank guarantees in the court.
The adviser disclosed that he was in consultation with the federal government and eight oil distribution companies for substituting motor vehicle tax with fuel tax. “A large number of automobile owners evade taxes because of cumbersome procedure of tax payment,” he said and added that oil distribution companies would become collector of the tax and no one would be able to evade this tax.
He was confident that his department would be able to push through this proposal and make it a law in the next budget.
He said that steps were being taken to introduce one window system for collection of these eight taxes through one challan. Since payment of these taxes at one time could be a burden on the taxpayer, a schedule for payment round the year was being prepared. “Our intention is to create a taxpayer- friendly atmosphere,” he remarked.
Jalil said that the provincial government was collecting two levies – infrastructure cess and stamp duty - at Karachi Port Trust, Port Qasim and Karachi airport. The infrastructure cess was collected by the Excise and Taxation Department while stamp duty at the rate of Rs400 per bill of lading was collected by Board of Revenue (BoR).
He said that due to built-in defects, the government was losing Rs38 to Rs40 million in stamp duty. He said that he had proposed the government to empower only one agency either the E&T Department or the BoR to collect these two taxes. The collecting agency should be linked with PRAL (Pakistan Revenue Automated Limited) to have accurate
idea of the number of bills of lading and the quantum of import.
He admitted that the working environment of the department was not conducive to sustain high quality work. “Most of the offices are in pathetic condition and have inadequate and poor quality furniture, poor manual keeping. There is lack of basic infrastructure facilities like telephones, fax, computers and printers. Then there is no system of incentive and motivation for the workforce in the department.”
In such built-in handicaps, steps were taken to mobilize and motivate the workforce. As a result the tax collection this fiscal year has increased significantly. “But there is still
some room for further improvement in tax collection,” the adviser remarked while pointing out that there were recoverable taxes due in billions of rupees.
“We are computing the outstanding tax dues and trying to locate the evaders,” he said and added that the campaign was already on and notices had been issued to the big hotels and business establishments.
