121 housing societies, 10 plazas served tax notices.

BAHAWALPUR -- The regional tax office has served notices on the owners of 121 unregistered housing societies and 10 'illegal' commercial plazas in the city for payment of tax dues amounting to millions of rupees.

Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chief Commissioner Dr Ashfaq Ahmed Tunio told Dawn here on Monday that the housing societies that had been served the notices were unregistered, while the plazas were also said to be illegal.

Dr Tunio said the tax department had recently unearthed four godowns where illegal stock of sugar (belonging to unidentified owners) was kept to evade sales tax. He said cases of non-payment of sales tax were instituted against the godown owners and a sum of Rs140 million as tax arears and fine was recovered from them.

Besides, he said the tax office had also detected a wholesale dealer of crockery who had 210 suppliers and 1,300 buyers in south Punjab and his annual sale amounted to more than two billion rupees. He had been directed to submit his income tax statements for the scrutiny.

He claimed that the tax revenue recovery from the cotton...