Lottery scheme for purchasing from mega Cash & Carry

Islamabad: The PTI government will launch a “Lottery Scheme” worth Rs 250 per month to incentivize computerized cash slips from Cash & Carry chains in the country.

The scheme will increase the number of tax filers with monetary incentives with cash prizes. Ultimately, the government will enhance the project to Rs one billion per month, said Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Tareen in a post-budget press conference on Saturday.

Given this scheme’s rationale, the Federal Finance Minister shared his HBL president by launching a lottery scheme for depositors at just Rs 40 million per month. Within months, the HBL saw cash deposits of Rs 4 billion through this scheme.

Last year FBR started a Point of Sales (PoS) at 10 thousand cash sales points, and the FBR got a response of new tax filers of 3 lakh and this year, we are expecting this number to one million through this lottery scheme, the minister hoped.

The purchasers at these high-end Cash & Carry stores in the country’s major cities will be eligible for sending their computerized cash slips from these stores; the minister unveiled the details of this scheme. Moreover, they (purchasers) will ensure the computerized generated cash slips to send to FBR for the lottery scheme, he added.

According to an estimated Cash & Carry Stores in major cities of the country, a turnover of Rs 1.5 trillion as a single store in Islamabad named Imtiaz Stores had reported turnover of Rs 4 billion.

Last year’s installing of PoS at various Cash & Carry stores has generated Rs 10 billion in revenue to the national kitty. Similarly, if the PoS installed at one million establishments, the FBR can efficiently generate revenue of Rs 500 billion only from this sector.

If the government wanted to eliminate the clutches of donors, Mr. Tareen emphasized that the only solution for this decade-old problem is to enhance the scope of PoS at mega Cash & Carry and later extend the scheme to the retail level.

Otherwise, the IMF warned the PTI government to broaden the tax base. The Finance Minister said, “We are opposing Multi-lateral this way of boarding tax base by imposing more taxes that are already under tax burden.  The PTI government wanted to increase the revenue by adding more persons, he concluded.