Excise Department to Collect Empty Plot Tax Across Punjab

The Punjab Excise Department has decided to start collecting property tax from vacant plots across the province, including Lahore. According to Additional DG Rizwan Sherwani, they will conduct geo-tagging to identify individuals who fail to pay taxes on vacant plots. Geo-tagging will help identify all the vacant plots within the rating areas. There are over 115,000 vacant plots in the tax net across Punjab, including Lahore. He added that the majority of vacant plots, over 70%, are located in large societies in Lahore. Through geo-tagging, more than 0.3 million vacant plots will be brought into the tax net. Empty plots are subject to annual taxes ranging from Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 12,000 based on the rating area’s value. The addition of new plots to the tax net is projected to boost annual revenue by one to one and a half billion rupees.