LAHORE - Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) chairman Dr Raheel Ahmed has briefed the press on the performance of the authority.

He said, “Three years ago, the number of taxpayers registered stood at 8700 while today with the effort of the authority, the number of active taxpayers has reached over 50,000 while the target is to reach 100,000 by 2020.” He stressed the need for launch of a new strategy to increase the number of taxpayers to 200,000 by 2025. He also said that 3 years ago, the annual collection stood at Rs.43 billion while in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year the authority has managed to collect over Rs.86.5 billion whereas the collection is expected to cross Rs.100 billion by the end of this month. He is also hopeful that the authority would be able to reach the annual target of Rs.115 billion. He said that this would not have been possible without the support and political will of Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif and Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha. He also pointed out that during FY15-16 the annual growth was recorded at 40pc while during FY16-17 it stood at 38pc.

He shed light on the TAX DAY awareness campaign conducted by PRA on 10th April since 3 years and expects the same to be celebrated at national level. While pointing out, this year’s TAX day campaign, he said PRA managed to arrange a meeting of all four provincial tax collection authorities and FBR to create harmonization and resolution of mutual differences which itself is an achievement.

The chairman also spoke about the Junior and Senior Internship programme as part of PRA’s youth engagement programme which not only helps create tax awareness but also helps create new human resource. He said the past 3 years have been very successful for PRA where it has managed to collect huge tax collection for the development projects initiated by Punjab government and stressed the need for improvement in tax paying culture by conducting awareness campaigns for enhancing the voluntarily culture for filing tax returns.