LAHORE: The Regional Tax Office (RTO) Lahore has already knocked down the target for 1st Quarter of Financial Year 22-23 while exceeding the revenue targets for the months of July–August 2022.

Chief Commissioner RTO Lahore Nasir Iqbal told Business Recorder that the revenue target for the 1st Quarter 2022 was Rs52.86 billion while it has made a collection of Rs53.2 billion so far. According to him, the target for July-August 22 was Rs30 billion and it has collected Rs36.9 billion against the last year collection of Rs24.8 billion, gaining an absolute increase of Rs12.1 billion, or 48.8%. He said strenuous efforts are underway to maintain the growth trajectory and achieve the target for month of September also despite the fact that the RTO Lahore has achieved its target for the 1st Quarter 22.

So far registration under Point of Sale (POS) integration is concerned, he said, the RTO has crossed the target by 50 cases for each month during the period of June-September 22. He added that the RTO Lahore is the only field formation in country to achieve 50+ integrations for a consecutive third month.

The Chief Commissioner said all the STGO cases are in focus of the RTO and integration is being pursued in a structured manner. The system is designed in such a way that a case would either be integrated or excluded from the list of Tier-1 retailers in case of filing of application for exclusion to the Commissioner and due process. The Tier-1 Retailer who neither integrate themselves not get exclusion certificate are being followed in a systematic way as per law. No individual can influence, by-pass or interfere in the process of registration and integration, he stressed.

He said taxpayers are encouraged to integrate with the digital system so that possibility of interaction between taxpayer and tax collectors are minimised. RTO Lahore is committed to achieving the revenue targets and POS integration, he added.

The Chief Commissioner also confronted the impression that the field staff of the RTO was pressuring Tier-1 Retailers for integration with POS or grease their palms, saying that a foolproof mechanism has been evolved to control unscrupulous elements. According to him, it is repeatedly conveyed to the taxpayers that their names are chosen by the Federal Board of Revenue through a regular Sales Tax General Order and whosoever disagrees with the conclusion can apply for exclusion certificate.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022