Meanwhile, the RTO-II Lahore has also achieved the assigned target of Rs 48.057 million for the first six months of the current financial year, reflecting a growth of 24 percent up to the month of December as compared to the same period of the last financial year.
Sources said the Chief Commissioner Inland Revenue, Regional Tax Office-II, Lahore Khawaja Adnan Zahir has led his team from the front and the RTO-II, Lahore was able to achieve the annual target for the financial year 2015-16 and now the same feat has been achieved by achieving the target for the first six months of the current financial year under his leadership.
Sources informed this correspondent that for the remaining six months of the financial year RTO-II, Lahore had chalked out a plan to achieve the expected targets. In addition to budgetary targets, the said RTO has assigned the highest priority to 'Broadening of Tax Base' ie identification and registration of new taxpayers in liaison with the Provincial Revenue Authority as well as the District/Tehsil Administration of Lahore, Kasur, Sheikhupura, Nankana Sahib & Okara.
In addition to the above, RTO-II, Lahore has initiated its enforcement drive against the non-filers of income tax and sales tax returns. All the Zonal Commissioners have prepared the lists of their respective non-filers to finalise provisional assessments along with imposition of penalties as per law. RTO-II, Lahore was facing huge burden of new taxpayer registrations since the jurisdiction of all non-corporate cases and corporate textile cases had been transferred from Corporate RTO, Lahore to RTO-II, Lahore in July/August 2016.
To tackle the immense workload, the Chief Commissioner RTO-II, Lahore held meetings with the Tax Bar Associations of Lahore, Kasur, Okara, Nankana Sahib and Sheikhupura to take them on board in devising taxpayer facilitation strategy. In this connection, additional logins of Data Entry Operators were created and staff was posted to cater to the new registration applicants.
In order to enhance transparency in the entire registration process, token issuance machine has been installed in RTO-II, Lahore; an applicant gets an automated token number for processing of his registration request. On demand of Tax Bar Associations, registration cells have also been created in Okara, Sheikhupura and Nankana Sahib to facilitate the residents of these districts in their hometown. In Kasur, the cell will be inaugurated in coming few days. Furthermore, FBR (HQ) has delegated several functions related to 'Change in Particulars' to respective RTOs so that taxpayers may not need to visit Islamabad for resolution of such issues which were erstwhile being monitored centrally.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017