By Abdul Wajid Khan ISLAMABAD, Feb. 17 (INP-WealthPk) The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) says the prize scheme for the customers purchasing from the Point of Sale (POS) integrated retailers is promoting tax culture and helping identify the real volume of retail sector business in the country. Talking to INP-WealthPk, spokesperson for the FBR Asad Tahir Jappa said, according to a research study, currently, the total volume of retail sector business in the country with annual turnover was around Rs18-20 trillion but the FBR’s estimates suggest that only about Rs3.5-4 trillion volume of retail business was on their tax radar, while 80 percent retail sector was obscure. He said there were two major purposes of the FBR’s prize scheme: first, to identify the actual volume of retail sector business; second, to ensure that tax collected from the customers at the POS system was deposited in the state exchequer. He said in an initial survey conducted by the FBR, so far around 26,000 big retailers had been identified under tier-1 and out of them, 2,200 retailers with about 15,000 outlets had been integrated into the POS system. “Through this prize scheme, we are engaging customers first time in the country’s history who are our biggest stakeholders and they pay millions of rupees worth of sale tax every day to retailers. We are creating awareness for the people to put check on their submitted tax and ask for real receipts with active bar code and FBR invoice number. We have incentivised them on their purchases from the FBR’s registered Tier-1 retail stores. The customers need to scan the bar code through ‘Tax Assan’ mobile application to participate in the prize scheme”, Asad Tahir Jappa highlighted. “We want to find the real volume of retail business through this computerised system and to bring tax into the national kitty in a safe and transparent way. We have launched a media campaign at the national and social media level to guide the customers about this system and our regional tax offices across the country are engaging with the people, trade bodies, chambers of commerce and all stakeholders to help them”, he further stated. He further revealed that the FBR officials recently raided a big retail store in Islamabad and found during inspection of record that 27,000 sale receipts were issued during two-day sales but out of them only 1,400 receipts were correct and linked with the POS integrated system, while the other receipts were kept out of FBR system to evade tax. He added that the scheme will continue to further promote tax culture in future. It is pertinent to mention that FBR has already distributed prizes worth Rs. 53 million among the lucky 1007 winners in the first computerized ballot held on January 15th, 2022. FBR has said that it is also heartening to see that people are showing a lot of interest in becoming part of next computerized draw, which will be held on February 15th, 2022. It added that it was further encouraging to witness that a huge number of customers were verifying their shopping receipts through FBR’s Tax Asaan Mobile App and SMS. People were also reaching out to the field formations as well as FBR headquarters to seek necessary guidance about this innovative Prize Scheme. The initiative of engagement with customers is all set to pick momentum and thus accelerate the desired national drive to promote tax compliance and substantially increase revenues. The computerized balloting for the prize scheme is held on 15th of every month at the FBR Headquarters, Islamabad. Initially, the denomination of prizes has been set at Rs10,00,000 (1st Prize), two prizes of Rs500,000, four prizes of Rs250,000 and 1,000 prizes of Rs50,000 each. Thus, a total prize amount of Rs53 million will be distributed among the lucky 1,007 winners, every month. The FBR, in a statement, said this lucrative prize scheme was aimed at maximizing transparency and plugging revenue leakage through real time monitoring of sales. This will not only force the Tier-1 retailers to expedite the integration of their retail outlets with the POS system, but also encourage the customers to prefer shopping from the POS-integrated retail outlets. The FBR looks forward to significantly increasing its revenue collection through these innovative initiatives, which are being praised by society. “The FBR is vigorously introducing automation and digitization not only to maximize the much-needed revenue, but also to ensure transparency, efficiency and facilitation in the tax system. We are all set to digitize and automate the processes involved in tax collection in order to minimize human intervention with taxpayers to ensure transparency and efficiency in the system”, said the FBR spokesperson. The FBR is also implementing several other measures, including Track and Trace System (TTS), to promote automation and digitization with a view to increasing the tax net and revenue collection. The FBR’s steps towards digitisation and automation of the system are considered the need of the hour. Analysts believe digital intervention under this new initiative will produce concrete results in future.