LAHORE: The Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) has registered only 100 beauty salons and cosmetic and plastic surgery clinics in the provincial capital on a voluntarily basis out of around 600 such places surveyed in the past two years or so.

The survey, which is yet to complete in Lahore, also couldn’t not be extended to other districts of Punjab to bring all beauty salons in the ambit of the Punjab Sales Tax on Services Act 2012.

The mushroom growth of beauty salon/parlors in the city has led the PRA to enhance focus on bringing them into tax net to help meet fiscal targets.

A senior official told Dawn on Wednesday that the category of salons, cosmetic and plastic surgery and hair transplants was included in six other categories for which the government had set a target of Rs1,000 million.

She said the enforcement teams had been serving notices to the non-registered beauty salons/parlors and had so far sealed around 50 salons for non-payment of 16 per cent sales tax.

She said that salons were being de-sealed after getting cheques against outstanding amounts from violators, adding the survey for identifying new salons was in progress with the help of field formations.

The official said that serious enforcement efforts to register beauty salons had been initiated during the current fiscal 2015-16 as the authority had already been trying to create awareness among people associated with the business through seminars, media campaigns and meetings with stakeholders in the past two years.

The official said cosmetic and plastic surgery clinics and hair transplants were extending cooperation to the authority for registration, adding the enforcement teams did not seal any slimming clinic, spas, cosmetic and plastic surgery and hair transplant clinic so far.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2015

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