I HAVE observed that several restaurants in Lahore, particularly those located in DHA and Gulberg, charge a 16 per cent general sales tax (GST) in their invoices, which actually were fictitious and not generated through restaurant invoice monitoring service (RIMS) installed by Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) at their premises.

These restaurants want to generate such invoices offline through a separate printer and thus pocket the sales tax. I have shared a few such invoices with the PRA during the recent months.

May I therefore suggest that the PRA may devise a system similar to the verification of CNIC whereby a customer could just check the veracity of the GST paid invoice by sending number of the relevant invoice by SMS to a designated number which confirms the invoice to be linked with RIMS or otherwise.

I am sure the PRA could substantially increase its sales tax collection through this system-driven control.

Basharat Malik
Lahore

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2019