LAHORE: The Regional Tax Office (RTO) Lahore has collected Rs 700 million under the head of advance tax from June 1 to 20, 2008 as compared to Rs 271 million in the corresponding period last year thus denoting an increase of 158 percent.

Besides, 15 teams constituted by the RTO in first week of June 2008 conducted random spot audit and unearthed short deduction and payment of tax worth Rs 52 million in less than 28 cases, official sources told Tax Review here on Tuesday.

The Commissioner, Income Tax, Enforcement, Collection and Tax Base Division-III, RTO, also identified short deduction of tax amounting to Rs 12.57 million by the Accountant General Punjab under Section 149 of the Income Tax Act. The Commissioner has referred the case to Project for Improving Financial Reports and Auditing (Pifra) Headquarters for examination of system configuration and to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) with the request that a team of Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (Pral) officials be constituted for appropriate remedial measures.

The Regional Tax Office also progressed in receiving income tax returns and statements which is evident from the 336,813 returns filed by the taxpayers during May 2008 as compared to 282,857 in the corresponding period last year, showing an increase of 53,956 returns during the same period. However, concerted efforts are underway to further enhance the number of returns during the current month of June 2008, says official sources.

The statements regarding the withholding tax filed by the companies were also thoroughly scrutinised to ascertain proper deduction of withholding tax. The exercise resulted in detection of short deduction of tax of Rs 6.559 million in 4,870 cases under section 149 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.

RTO Director General Khawaja Shaukat Ali attributed the substantial increase in collection of advance tax to the better monitoring from the liable taxpayers. He stressed the need for making all out efforts to meet the assigned budgetary targets and directed the field officers to make concerted efforts to generate revenue with special emphasis on efficient monitoring of returns and tax deductions during the last crucial fortnight of the current financial year, the official sources added.