Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA) has ensured minimum tax for those sectors of construction industry which are crucial for provincial economy.

Speaking at awareness session which is being carried out with the assistance of USAIF funded KP Revenue Mobilization Programme (KPRM), authority’s communication and outreach lead Aftab Ahmed said that roads, apartment, bridges and architecture fell in the construction industry category.

He said that different ratios of taxes were levied on different sectors. “Landscaping has five percent tax on it; however, in case of government project only two percent will be charged,” he said.

In addition to this, there is two percent tax on construction of dam as they were crucial for addressing energy crisis in the country.

Mr Aftab said that the construction sector of the country was progressing rapidly; therefore, government has facilitating them by reducing taxes. In addition to this, tax ratio has also been reduced on cement, gravel and other construction material.

Mr Aftab said that those engaged in construction business should register themselves with the authority as otherwise they would not be allowed to engage in construction.

Besides, he said that in the past, KPRA mostly focused on training of taxpayer. However, he added that recently authority also arranged training for its staff for the assistance of KPRM.

“This is has resulted into building of trust between the authority and taxpayers and we conveyed to public that taxes were being put to use for their welfare,” he said.

Muhammad Yasir, KPRM’s deputy chief of party, said that in any organization you have to do research before carrying out any reform. “When we researched the tax system, we realized that you need to educate people if you are planning to make an organization better and we used mainstream media and other sources of communication for this purpose,” he said.

Mr Yasir said that the assessment carried out by them was giving positive results.

He said that the public has grown more aware about paying taxes and more and more people were paying their taxes. “Besides, we also receive good feedback for our activities,” he said.

Mr Yasir said that in most tax related campaigns, general public feedback was about what they were getting in exchange for paying their taxes. He said that health, education, roads and other basic facilities were provided to public in exchange for paying taxes.

Mr Yasir said that tax collection authorities’ processes should be as simplified as possible as it pertained to general public. “Public usually does not shies away from following easier processes,” he said.

Mr Yasir added that more tax related reforms will lead to increase in number of taxpayer.

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