LAHORE: Zone-II of Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU) is especially focusing on non-filers to boost tax collection for strengthening national economy. The Zone-II is also ensuring assessment of income of taxpayers and imposition of taxes for huge collection in the targeted sectors.
This was stated by Nawal Shaikh, Additional Commissioner LTU, Zone-II Enforcement Unit, during an exclusive interview with Customs Today.
Talking about the jurisdiction, Nawal said she deals with the textile, auto and telecom sectors and added that enforcement-two of zone-II collects taxes from the world call, Honda Motors, Sazgar Rickshaw, New Asia Rickshaw, United Auto Industries, Nishat Mills, Nishat Chunian, Koh-e-Noor Textile Sefam, Ali Embroidery, Sarena Industries and Ibraheem Fiber (Pakistan’s largest unit of polyester fiber in Pakistan).
Answering a question, she said the enforcement unit works start after the audit division creates demand and sends it to the enforcement. She works to meet the demand through the tax collected sent by the audit wing. With the enforcement, she makes assessment of income of taxpayers under the section 11(2) of sales tax act 1990 and section 161 of income tax ordinance 2001. In many cases, the compliance rate is very good, but in few cases taxpayers go in the appeal and challenge the department’s decision before the relevant judicial forum after receiving the order.
In case of enforcement of returns from the non-filers, she sends notices under section 114 of income tax ordinance to the taxpayers. In case of non-compliance in sales tax, the LTU suspends taxpayer’s entity whereby his imports are stopped and his all transactions and status is nullified. Finally, if taxpayer does not coordinate with the department then LTU declares taxpayer blacklisted where his all business transactions become zero. Nawal said Zone-II also ensures regulations and monitoring of withholding tax under the laws.
The additional commissioner said that with the current demand, she also collects arrear demand and super tax from the taxpayer.
Talking about the problems, Nawal said litigation is a major problem. When taxpayers go in the appeal, tax collection process slows down, she pointed out.
Answering a question, Nawal said that IRIS, the latest software introduced by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), has made it easy to understand all the taxation system processes and transactions for senior as well as junior officers.
She said the tax collection is a difficult task, but the LTU Zone-II is working efficiently and collecting more taxes to meet the revenue collection target. She told Customs Today that the LTU collects taxes from big companies, which falls under the jurisdiction of Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) also collect taxes from volume companies.
She said that under the guidance of Chief Commissioner, Chaudhary Safder Hussain, the LTU has been showing outstanding performance for the last few years.