After the successful roll-out of the restaurant invoice monitoring system (RIMS), the Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) has now developed the beauty parlours invoice monitoring system (BIMS) in collaboration with the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB).
A meeting in this regard was held with the hair and beauty salon’s association (HBSA) here on Monday at the PRA office. Representatives of the HBSA were invited to be updated on the recent developments. A number of leading members of the BHSA attended the meeting.
Recently, PRA initiated a summary wherein a reduced rate scheme for the beauty parlours was approved by the government of Punjab.
At present, registration in the beauty services sector stands only at 287 registered tax payers yielding about 3 to 4 million rupees a month. Previously, the PRA conducted a workshop with beauticians and salon owners. Thereafter, the HBSA filed a petition before the PRA to consider the beauty services sector’s plea for reducing the rate of sales tax on hair and beauty parlours to around 5%. After a series of meetings to figure out a workable option, it was also mutually resolved that the proposed reduction in the sales tax rate will be admissible for only those who opt for the new invoice monitoring system which will be installed at their premises for monitoring sales invoices.
During the meeting, representatives of the association promised full support for bringing their members into the Punjab sales tax net and insured further cooperation for the installation of the new system at their premises. Details of the reward scheme on the lines of the reward scheme for the restaurant invoice monitoring system were also shared. It was also decided to meet again in the coming week to finalise the finer details of the newly installed system.
The PRA is actively working on enhancing the geographical outreach of such monitoring systems to other cities of Punjab. The authority is expecting that once the BIMS is implemented, the revenue from the beauty parlour sector will improve considerably as has already happened with the restaurant sector. At the same time, the provincial revenue authority, with its aim of improving tax compliance in the country, has expressed its keen desire and interest in sharing its experiential knowledge with other tax collection agencies of Pakistan for which purpose it is in the process of setting up an advance training and research facility.