The Punjab government has given significant tax relief of Rs56 billion to the businesses hit adversely by the Covid-19 pandemic to save jobs and ensure that such enterprises continued to operate. Additionally, the tax cuts and rebates for taxpayers announced in the 2020-21 budget aim at digitising the economy, ease of doing business, documentation of certain sectors of the economy and promotion of construction and tourism industries.

At the same time, according to the finance bill, the government has decided to bring the ride-hailing services (Uber, Cream and others) into the provincial sales tax on services net through special rate of 4pc, increasing the total number of services being taxed in the province to 69.The ride-hailing services, which were categorised as Rent-a-Car service, have now been declared a separate business for the purpose of taxing it.

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