Bill Lao Inam Pao scheme: Punjab taxation dept imposes ₹3-crore penalty for wrong bills
As many as 1,361 notices have been issued to vendors for wrong bills and ₹2.12 crore of the total penalty amount has been recovered by the Punjab taxation department
{Bill Lao Inam Pao scheme}
Punjab finance, planning, excise and taxation minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Friday said a total penalty of ₹3.11 crore had been imposed for 533 wrong bills received till February 8 under the “Bill Lao Inam Pao” scheme.
As many as 1,361 notices have also been issued to vendors concerned in this regard and ₹2.12 crore of the total penalty amount has been recovered by the taxation department.
A total of 1,164 winners, including 246 in January, had been declared so far through online draws by uploading their purchase bills on Mera Bill mobile app. Among them, 918 winners had won prizes worth ₹43,73,555 till December 2023. A draw is conducted every month by a committee constituted by the state government.
Cheema said the scheme, aimed at motivating consumers to obtain bills for their purchases and thereby forcing sellers to issue bills for their sales, had received a huge response from people since the launch of the mobile app by chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on August 21, 2023.
Out of the total of 59,616 bills received till February 8 under the scheme, 52,988 had been verified and 6,628 bills were pending, he said in a statement.
A total of 189 wrong bills were received from the Ferozepur district, where penalties of ₹34,99,250 had been imposed.
Further, ₹16,95,294 had been imposed for 86 wrong bills from Faridkot district, ₹19,47,192 for 75 wrong bills from Patiala, ₹33,62,324 for 61 wrong bills from Jalandhar, ₹50,43,524 for 51 wrong bills from Rupnagar, ₹59,72,910 for 38 wrong bills from Amritsar and ₹95,95,872 for 33 wrong bills from Ludhiana.
The finance minister said sale bills of petroleum products (crude oil, petrol, diesel, aviation turbine fuel and natural gas) and liquor bills related to purchases made outside Punjab, as well as B2B (business to business) transactions, were not eligible for participation in this scheme. He said only bills of purchases made in the last month were considered in the draw.
He appealed to people of state to get the purchase bills of all goods and services being purchased by them, and participate in the scheme every month to win prizes to the tune of ₹10,000. He said this scheme was proving to be helpful in conveying the message of tax compliance at the grassroots level and annihilating the practice of tax evasion from its roots.
