KARACHI: Sindh sales tax collection registered a growth of 17 per cent to Rs47.3 billion during the first seven months of this fiscal year.

However, the collection surged by 47 per cent during January.

Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) Chairman Khalid Mahmood attributed this growth to strict monitoring of recovery of outstanding arrears and bringing those individuals under the net who had been avoiding it.

Talking to Dawn on Thursday, he said that the board collected Rs9.5bn as sales tax in January compared to Rs6bn last year.

According to details, the province’s sales tax collection during July-January period of 2017-18 stood at Rs47.3bn as against Rs40.4bn recorded in the corresponding period last year.

Mr Mahmood said the surge in revenue collection in January contributed in taking the accumulative growth of last seven months to 17pc.

During the first quarter (July-September) of 2017-18, the SRB collected Rs18.31bn in sales tax as against Rs17.22bn in the corresponding period of 2016-17, a growth of 6pc.

The growth in sales tax collection also sustained during the second quarter (Oct-Dec) of the current fiscal year as collection reached Rs19.48bn, compared to Rs17.20bn in the same period of last year, a growth of 13pc.SRB’s Advisor Tax Policy Syed Mushtaq Kazmi said that the board is going to launch the Point of Sales (PoS) tax system from the next fiscal year for retail services like restaurants, caterers, beauty parlours, fashion designers and clubs etc.

Under the PoS system, he said, the service providers will be connected with the SBR system on real-time-basis through fiscal cash registers and each transaction will be automatically monitored through the system.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2018