KP govt restores 2% property tax, hopes to collect Rs5.5bn

post-feature-img
Description

The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has re-established the government’s right to collect property tax all over the province after a period of two years expecting to add Rs5.5 billion to its revenue annually. 

According to the details, the KP cabinet has restored 2 percent property tax on immobile property tax which was recently waived off because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Officials of the Finance Department told the media men that all the TMAs have been ordered to collect local council fees at the rate of 2%. The tax collection procedure will start on July 1.

It is to be mentioned that the provincial government had earlier stopped TMAs from collecting property tax for a time of two years, issuing Rs4 billion and Rs1 billion in each of those years to TMAs in order to meet their expenditures. But, now, that the circumstances have returned to normal, the KP government has announced to restart of tax collections. 

The local government department sources reported that more than Rs5.5 billion in property tax is estimated to be collected this year.

It is worth mentioning that the Project of Computerization of Land Records Phase-I was started and successfully completed 9 years back in seven districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Peshawar, Mardan, Abbottabad, Buner,  Kohat, Bannu, and D.I Khan whereas the Project of Computerization of Land Records in the rest of the districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Phase-II) was started in 2015 for digitizing the Record of Swat, Shangla, Mansehra, Batagram, Nowshera,  Charsada, Hangu, Kara, Haripur, Swabi, Lakki Marwat, and Tank. Computerized FardMalkiat/mutations, Computerized procedures, Maintenance of ShajraNasab, Secure, Reliable, and accountable transactions, Real-time maintenance of record, Conclusiveness of the land registration system, Data mining for planning and taxation, Instantly verifiable record for banks, E-land Rights Pass Book leading to increases in tenure security are the major performance indicators (KPIs) of the above-mentioned Projects success and increase the performance of the Land Revenue Department.