KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan on Monday appointed Bank of Punjab (BoP) as its agent for collecting receipts and taxes of the Punjab government.
The central bank in a statement said that more banks will be appointed for other provinces to improve the tax collection.
The appointment is part of the SBP’s strategy to facilitate the federal and provincial governments in improving their tax collection systems, the statement said.
“This will diversify tax payment options for taxpayers, introduce much-needed competition in governments’ tax collection business and thus improve the service quality of banks engaged in government tax collection business,” said the SBP.
SBP Executive Director Syed Irfan Ali said: “The SBP is committed to providing efficient, competitive and state-of-the-art banking services to the federal and provincial governments either by itself or through its agencies.”
He said the inclusion of BoP will facilitate taxpayers in payment of government dues and taxes. He said based on the experience of BoP similar arrangements will be made with other provincial governments to collect their taxes through banks of their choice.
