F.P. Report
PESHAWAR: Due to tax reforms of the provincial government, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA) has doubled its annual revenue in the last financial year as compared to 2018-19 and 2019-20 whereas annual income of KPRA is expected to triple by the end of this fiscal year.
The total annual revenue of KPRA for the financial year 2018-19 was Rs. 10.4 billion, 17.1 billion for the year 2019-20 and 21.00 billion for the year 2020-21. Similarly, KPRA has recovered Rs. 21.1 billion during the last eight months of the current fiscal year whereas its annual revenue is expected to reach up to Rs. 30 billion by the end of this fiscal year.
This was told in the 10th meeting of the policy making council of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority held here on Thursday with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan in the chair.
The forum was informed that KPRA has made significant improvement in the ratio of filing and tax registration in addition to improvement in revenue collection. 78 percent increase has been recorded in the ratio of filing during the year 2019-20 as compared to 2018-19 whereas 90 percent increase has been made in filing during the year 2020-21.
Similarly, during the last fiscal year, total number of KPRA registration has reached 15,111 which was 11,630 during the fiscal year 2019-20 and 7,808 in the year 2018-19.
Provincial Minister for Finance Taimur Salim Jhagra, Minister for Law Fazal Shakoor Khan, Advisor to Chief Minister for Excise & Taxation Khaleeq-ur-Rahman, Administrative Secretaries of Finance, Excise and Law Departments, Managing Director KPRA, Private Members of the Council and other concerned officials attended the meeting.
Briefing about the progress on reforms initiatives and other steps taken to facilitate the tax payers, it was informed that KPRA has started the process of a number of new digital reforms to facilitate the tax payers including Restaurant Information Management System and Point of Sale System etc. Work was also in progress on the legal reforms and new legislation in order to strengthen KPRA and to make it a robust institution adding that various acts would be enacted very soon including Sale Tax on Services Act and Infrastructure Development Act.
Expressing his satisfaction over the performance of KPRA as a whole, the chief minister has directed the authorities concerned to further improve the performance in certain sectors particularly in facilitating the taxpayers, in making the tax recovery system more transparent and to build up public confidence on the mechanism of tax collection.
He said that tax reforms and extending maximum facilitation to the taxpayers was an integral part of the good governance strategy of his government adding that the government was taking concrete steps under a well devised strategy in this regard.
He said that due to the result-oriented initiatives of the provincial government, tax recovery ratio has improved significantly despite tax rebates due to the corona pandemic.
