Gujrat: The Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) has issued tax notices to hotels and guest houses across the city, a news source reported. A number of unregistered hotels have also been added to the authority’s registration database.
PRA took the action after the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) gathered data pointing towards potential instances of tax evasion by these commercial developments.
ACE gathered data listing the number of hotels and their guests in the November 2018 period. When this information was compared with corresponding data in the PRA registry, huge differences were found.
The notices were issued to hotels that did not pay taxes in-line with their number of guests.
According to ACE Gujrat Deputy Director Sajjad Gondal, PRA didn’t have access to the data of around 2,472 guests, who stayed in various hotels of Gujrat during November. PRA had been relying on the data retrieved from hotel managements, which helped the latter in evading taxes.
Previously, the revenue authorities had collected at least PKR 2 billion annually. However, in recent years, PRA’s collection has fallen below that number.
