On the proposal of the Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA), the Punjab Finance Department on Monday notified reduced rates for services provided by standalone non-authorised segment of laundries and dry cleaners (5 percent), hair-cutting, dyeing and shaving salons located outside the precincts of a hotel, motel, guest house, club etc (5 per cent), car/automobile dealers (5 percent), auto workshops and by workshops for electric or electronic equipments or appliances (5 percent), gyms and physical fitness (5 percent), construction services (5 per cent-with aggregate value of less than 50 million), Property dealers (5 percent) and tour operators/travel agents (5 percent).
Moreover, across the board reduced rate has also been announced for franchise service (10 per cent instead of 16 percent), services provided by accountants, auditors, actuaries, tax consultants, company secretaries, receivers, liquidators, auctioneers and corporate law consultants (5 percent) and services provided to the textile or leather sectors in respect of manufacturing or processing on toll or job basis (2 per cent- against processing on conversion charges).
This was announced by the Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) Member Enforcement & Operations Raza Munawar while addressing a press conference at the Authority's headquarters here on Monday evening. He also briefed the stakeholders from the above mentioned services sectors about the relief package being extended to them and hoped that it would help enhancing the tax net and increasing the compliance rate. Replying to various queries, Raza Munawar said that the Authority was intensifying its efforts to raise revenue collection and it first time ever touched its monthly budget of collecting Rs 5 billion last month. He said that tax relief was being extended with the hope to increase tax base and showed optimism that they would be increasing revenue collection and registration in these sectors by 100 per cent during next three months. He also expressed his hope that the Authority would meet its annual target of Rs 72 billion this year.
He said that the Authority had a recoverable of Rs 11 billion against the Federal Board of Revenue against 6 per cent duty imposed on telecom on imports-input of which they claim from the provincial sales tax body. Similarly, he said many other sectors were also being tapped and one of those was a tax on carriage of goods and a meeting was scheduled for Tuesday in Islamabad to resolve the issue.