LAHORE: Minister for Special Education Atif Saeed has lauded the Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) for showing best performance.
The minister, while addressing the 7th and 8th balloting of the Tax Amanat Scheme for restaurant customers, said that the PRA in a short span of four years has become the leading tax agency of the Punjab government.
In year 2011-12, sales tax on services was collected by the federal government on behalf of the Punjab and later transferred Rs22 billion to provincial government, he said, adding that now when PRA is collecting the same tax, its earnings have grown over Rs62 billion per annum.
The revenue collection is the principal measure to assess the performance of any tax collection department and figures speak for themselves, he said.
Additional Commissioner Shehzad Mehmood Gondal highlighting the PRA efforts of tax collection said that several factors could be assigned to this phenomenal growth such as better strategy, facilitation and education of the tax payers, effective leadership, transparent and trustworthiness.
However, the aforesaid increase could not be achieved without the advancement in information technology. Restaurant Invoice Monitoring System (RIMS) is just one aspect of ensuring growth in revenues through electronic means of monitoring tax collection, he said.
Briefly, RIMS is a system to electronically monitor sales and invoices issued to restaurant customers on real time basis and to safeguard against tax evasion and ensure correct reporting and transparency, Shehzad said, adding that the method is to install a software programme into the restaurant’s invoicing systems and then establish a real time communication link for transmission of data of invoices to PRA’s computer system.
Gradually but surely the RIMS started gaining ground and successfully extended to over 300 restaurants (till today) and by the year end it will be rolled out to other cities as well as other service sectors.
With just start of the RIMS, the partner restaurants registered an increase of 35 percent in revenue in few months’ time which showed the usefulness of electronic monitoring.
However, the scheme could not be made effective unless the participation of the public was ensured. PRA, on the special instructions of Chief Minister Punjab, introduced a balloting scheme known as Tax Amanat Scheme for restaurant customers who could send invoices through WhatsApp, Facebook or SMS and win exciting prizes.
The cycle is now complete as all three stakeholders i.e tax collector, restaurants and customers are tied into an electronic system which safeguards the revenue, works against the leakages and owners of restaurant also happy as they were into transparent and hassle-free relationship with tax collector.
Over 25,000 customers participated in the scheme by sending their invoices and 356 lucky persons will be given prizes.
