More taxmen likely to be posted at delis and bakeries

[Naveed Yaseen]

MUHAMMAD ALI
KARACHI (July 16 2009): The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has planned to extend the level of monitoring to plug revenue leakages as more taxmen from enforcement collectorate are likely to be posted at dozens of prominent delis, purveyors and bakeries, shortly. Sources told Business Recorder on Wednesday that the exercise was aimed at broadening the tax net, besides promoting tax culture and tax compliance among taxpayers.

They said that taxmen were being posted at only unregistered food supplying units to get them inducted in the tax net, and added that the exercise would generate substantial revenue to the national exchequer. They said the department had kept on intimating the unregistered restaurants, qualified for sales tax registration, to get enrolled, but they did not give positive response. Therefore, the collectorate, with encouragement from newly reorganised management of the FBR initiated the exercise.

According to sources, the management is so far satisfied with the results, which led to significant increase in revenue collection. They dispelled the perception that the exercise was likely to hamper the business activity, saying that monitoring of sales records would not hinder the normal business transactions.

Sources said that the exercise earlier had generated some Rs 7 million from some 15 registered delis. As a result of this, the level of monitoring has been extended to some five more unregistered restaurants. Out of these, three restaurants got sales tax registration.

Furthermore, they said, the department has collected over Rs 1 million from unregistered eateries after stiff monitoring of their daily transactions. Sources said that the daily average sales of the restaurant amounted to Rs 0.3 million to Rs 0.5 million. But it had shown half of the actual sales. They said that some restaurants were using illegal tactics to suppress the normal level of actual sales to hamper monitoring process. They hoped that similar exercise may be carried out in other big cities.

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