Daily Times

The Excise & Taxation Department (E&TD) Islamabad has collected over Rs 6642 million tax in different forms in around six months that was significantly high than previous.

According to a document available with Daily Times, the tax collected by the department from July 2020 to January 2021 was Rs 6642.36. The obtained tax amount consisted of different categories. It includes the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) that was Rs 2222.22, profit tax over Rs 610 million.

The document stated that the E&TD collected approximately Rs 2837.2 in kind of other fees including urgent registration fee, re-registration fee, duplicate registration cert fee, transfer fee, penalty for late registration, replacement fee, hire purchase fee, temporary registration fee, address change fee, special number fee, mutual fee, advance number allocation, biometric late penalty.

In respect of motor vehicle tax, rebate, life time token, penalty and motor vehicle arrears, the department collected revenues of around Rs 1510.6. Similarly, around Rs 4 million accumulated as education cess that, as per document, was 2 percent of total generated revenue.

Around Rs 93 million has been added into national exchequer by the E&TD from the customers as tobacco vend fee. Likewise, over Rs 911 million accumulated as whole for dealer registration fee, dealer security fee, dealer renewal fee, dealer penalty fee and dealer renewal arrears. While talking to Daily Times, Director E&TD Bilal Azam confirmed the aforementioned statistics, saying that the generated revenue was many times higher than previous years and it has been made possible only through good planning.

“It’s all due to our planning and team work”, he claimed adding that since he resumed charge he followed many revolutionary measures in the department to boost its performance.

He recalled that the initiatives resulted in appreciation of Prime Minister Imran Khan. “During the pandemic COVID-19, the efficiency and performance of the department has not been affected. Although the performance in terms of raising the revenue and actions taken against the violators and provision of facilities to the general public has actively been enhanced, that was applauded by Premier in his tweet,” Bilal added.

While highlighting other initiatives implemented in the department, the Director said that biometric verification and appointment system was one of them, adding that the presence of vehicles is not mandatory now. Besides the customers’ convenience, he revealed, the new policy played a pivotal role in stopping fraudulent ways for looting the public from different elements. Not only this, Azam recalled, after the launch of biometric system the number of transfers has been two times increased which generated Rs 10 million additional revenue.

The Director further said that it’s the first time that E&TD launched the crackdown against tobacco under Tobacco Control Act-1958, adding that about 1300 notices have been issued to defaulter and illegal sellers of Tobacco at any vicinity of ICT. He added that the field staffers of the department are conducting surveys on a daily basis regarding registration of real estate agents and motor vehicle dealers throughout Islamabad. “Around 2500 real estate agents and motor vehicle dealers have been registered under the ordinance of Islamabad Real Estate Agents and Motor Vehicles Dealer 1984 while revenue of millions of rupees have been generated through this policy,” Azam explained.

In reply to a question regarding non-custom paid vehicles, the Director responded that the department has placed a comprehensive police force as, he added, the field staff have been given proper training by the forensic team on how to handle the matter and then operation started against such vehicles which turned up into massive recovery. “In recent 15 stolen vehicles have been handed over to the Punjab Police of respective areas of robberies,” he recalled adding that similarly action being carried out against out of custom vehicles as well. Besides this, he maintained, the E&TD also connected with Custom and FBR for imported vehicles pre-verification process and filer/non-filer status of applicants which, he highlighted, was a new feasible to citizens initiative of the department.