Finance Minister Punjab Mukhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht launched the inter-provincial communications portal (IPCP) on Monday to enable the four provincial revenue authorities to keep contact and share ideas and matters of mutual interest electronically. He was speaking at a coordination meeting of all the four provincial revenue authorities hosted by the Punjab Revenue Authority.
He appreciated the holding of the meeting and expressed the hope that all provinces would work together to improve the economy, revenue and promote ease of doing business. He stressed holding of meetings on regular basis and appreciated the PRA's efforts for developing of the communications portal, saying that such electronic means of communication for sharing of ideas were need of the hour to any modern organisation.
The meeting was attended by representatives of all provincial revenue authorities, including chairman Sindh Revenue Board Khalid Mehmood, Director General Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority Tahir Orakzai, chairman Balochistan Revenue Authority Misri Ladhani, Advisor Tax Policy Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) Mushtaque Kazimi and Adviser KPRA and chairperson and members of the PRA Iftikhar Qutab.
The Punjab Revenue Authority apprised the participants of their recent IT initiatives including the launching of PRA-Mirror, PRA-Eye, payment of taxes through Alternate Delivery Channels, STRIVe and Blue Sky thinking.
Detailed deliberations were held on issues of mutual concern. The representatives discussed moving to a negative list for sales tax on services, issues regarding taxation of the telecom sector, taxation of digital economy and development of an early warning mechanism among the four Revenue authorities. Other issues pertaining to common framework of taxation of digital economy, recovery of sales tax on services mistakenly deposited to the FBR by Disco's and oil marketing companies and case of Civil Aviation Authority Vs the SRB were also discussed in the meeting.
Earlier during a joint press briefing, chairman SRB Khalid Mehmood appreciated PRA's effort of organising the meeting, he said such meetings are necessary for the resolution of tax related issues faced by the business community and for providing a comfortable environment for ease of doing business in the provinces.
DG KPRA, Tahir Orakzai in his remarks valued PRA's resolution in providing a platform where all provincial revenue authorities could meet together and discuss issues relating to ease of doing business, tax facilitation and to create a roadmap towards resolution of issues with FBR.
In his comments Misri Ladhani, chairman BRA thanked Javed Ahmed for inviting all the heads of the provincial revenue authorities to discuss tax related issues, rationalize tax services, and find means to help facilitate tax payers to increase the tax base and to create mutual understanding amongst the revenue collection authorities.
Chairman PRA Javed Ahmed in response to a question stated that the suspension of tax collection from the telecom sector by the Supreme Court has resulted in a shortfall in overall tax collection by not only the provincial authorities, but also the FBR and hoped for an early resolution to the case by the Supreme Court. He also shed light on the initiative of PRA to introduce Blue Sky Thinking, the use of drone technology for the surveillance of property development, construction services and marriage halls etc.
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