LAHORE: The Regional Tax Office (RTO) is still in a slow mode so far as registration of Tier-1 Retailers (T-1Rs) under the Point of Sale (POS) integration is concerned, starting since the change of government in the centre back in April.
According to reliable sources, the concerned officials have focused on clearing the backlog until the situation gets clear about the future course of action. To the maximum, the RTO has designed a month-long awareness campaign that would start by the next week and to be continued till end-September. Sources said the RTO officials would hold seminars, workshops and interactive sessions with T-1Rs under the campaign.
The RTO sources said field work has been slowed down and all the activities are restricted to telephonic surveys for POS integration. So far, they said, the RTO has integrated 140 textile, leather and sports T-1Rs. The integration was started back in July 2021 and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has recently allowed its field formations to seal T-1Rs outlets by amending provisions relating to penalties of Sales Tax Act, 1990.
Changes have been incorporated to section 25 and section 33, authorizing the field formations to seal the Tier-1 outlets found involved in issuing three receipts in a day or five in a week without a Quick Response (QR) code. Furthermore, the field formations were also authorised to seal outlets failing to get integrated despite falling in the requisite category, sources added.
According to sources, the filed formations were busy with the process of data analysis regarding T-1Rs to implement the amended law ahead.
“We have started working on the data and have found a large number of retail outlets not issuing QR code-laden receipts to their customers”, said one source requesting anonymity.
However, the ongoing Shahbaz Gill episode has put the process on backburner, especially when rumours are circulating that postings and transfers of additional commissioners is on the cards. It may be noted that the RTO had also postponed the planned holding of POS balloting in the city after the change of guards at the central office of the Board.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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