KARACHI, Dec 16: Tax on agriculture income will be collected to its full potential by 2009 when a Sindh government computerisation project aimed at collecting data on ownership titles will be completed at a cost of Rs432 million.
Mir Shafqat Talpur, Member Reforms Wing special cell, Sindh Board of Revenue, told Dawn on Saturday that the project, Revenue Management Information System—Remis, deals with computerisation of revenue collection assessment, and accounting with special emphasis on documentation of ownership titles.
There are an estimated three million landowners (khatedars) in 5,961 Dehs in 23 districts of the province. The total farm land area is about 25 million acres in 121 talukas.
Meanwhile, application of an earlier project completed in five districts at a cost of over Rs29 million for electronic generation of revenue bills has been shelved due to extension of the scope of revenue collection to the entire province. The pilot project launched in 2003-04 was carried out in Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur, Khairpur and Larkana.
Sources at the BoR giving details of the new project said that thousands of mutations take place every year and the documentation of land records will drastically cut the cost of transaction and will avoid errors in record keeping. Decrease in transaction cost will result in increased turnover and more revenue for the government in terms of mutation fee.
They said the project would ensure accessibility of records, which would result in more land owners requesting for copies of ownership titles. It will generate revenue for the government in terms of cards issuance fee.
Apart from collecting tax on agricultural income, the project will help develop a more efficient and transparent property market in rural areas. It will provide correct data to the banks to grant loans to small farmers.
Remis is a major shift from the old age system of manual record keeping to the modern tools of computerisation. The recurring cost of the project per taluka (town) has been estimated at Rs0.50 million.
Each district will be required to allocate funds for the recurring expenditure after completion of the project in the annual budget for the respective district governments.
Chairman Taxation Committee of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry Haroon Asgar welcomed the project for computerisation of land records saying: "It is never too late to mend."
He said the trade and industry had borne the brunt of the tax since Pakistan came into being while landlords having influence in corridors of powers were kept out of tax net.
He expressed the hope that with the completion of documentation of land records, the agriculturists will pay their long overdue tax, thus relieving the trade from heavy tax burden.
The Sindh Board of Revenue collected Rs234.289 million as farm tax during 2005-06 as compared to Rs225.164 million in the previous year and Rs247.079 million in 2003-04.