Provincial Minister for Finance Dr Aisha Ghous Pasha said that the 18th Amendment has allowed for greater provincial autonomy. This has also enabled the provinces to make policies from the revenue side of the budget. The Punjab government has introduced many reforms in tax sector which has increased the revenue of the province by 45 percent and also generated an additional Rs. 47 billion. Establishment of “Tax Clinics” are another milestone initiative of Punjab revenue Authority to easier the tax system for their clients. She said that taxpayer is bound to full fill his national obligation in form of taxes whereas the tax collecting agencies are bound to provide him facilities. She further said that PRA is committed to introduce a Portal in near future for taxpayer complains. She stated this while addressing the launching ceremony of Tax Clinic for beauty salons by Punjab Revenue Authority in collaboration with GIZ, today at Pearl Continental hotel Lahore. She said that tax clinics are running on regular basis for the low income groups and the less informed Taxpayers in the advanced countries. But in our country PRA is taking lead amongst all the revenue collecting agencies of the country by introducing such as initiative. Purpose of running such tax clinics is to diagnose and provide remedy for the people who are averse to the use of cumbersome processes. Beauty Parlors and Salons sector is the most important sector for us for the reasons that they provide unique services of personal care and also an emblem of “Women Entrepreneurship”. We are mindful of the fact that this sector has challenges and opportunities. Through this clinic, we will try to ease out these challenges. Chairman PRA Dr. RaheelSaddique in his remarks said, these clinics shall not only help educate the taxpayers with applicable tax laws, the process of registration, filling of returns, use of applicable monitoring systems but shall also provide PRA and its taxpayers an opportunity to have frequent extensive contacts to improve tax payer facilitation and compliance. He further shed light on the advantages of introducing technology in generating taxes and shared his vision of proceeding forward by initiating more Tax Clinics for different sectors. The Finance Minister in her closing remarks appreciated the efforts of PRA for taking the initiative of introducing Tax Clinic as a tool to educate taxpayers and introduce new means of technology for the generation and expansion of the tax net. She assured providing full support to the department as and when required and agreed on giving any legislative support to make more laws about taxation to avoid the litigation.
