KATHMANDU: Inland Revenue office (IRO) area no 2 aims to collect 110 per cent of the targeted revenue of Rs 1.85 billion in the current fiscal year. To fulfill the goal, it has intensified its monitoring activities visiting at least 10 firms and companies a day.

“We have mobilized three monitoring teams,” said Rajendra Prasad Nepal, chief tax administrator. IRO monitoring teams have found nine financial companies — finances and cooperatives — in Chhetrapati area guilty of evading house rent tax. The team is calculating the tax amount cheated by the financial institutions.

The office was successful in collecting as penalty over Rs 50 million within a month from raids. Kathmandu Trade Center Pvt Ltd (KTC), owner of Kathmandu Mall, paid Rs 8.8 million after the intervention of the office in June. KTC has total house rent liability of Rs 20 million over the last two-and-a-half years. “KTC has promised to pay the tax within the first half of July,” said Jeevan Baskota, officer at the area no. 2 IRO.

The office have got success in investigating value added tax (VAT) embezzlement through loose billing in Nepal Diary Pvt Ltd and its subsidiary ND’s Ice-cream, Shikhar Enterprises and Active Traders. IRO area no. 2 collected Rs 5.32 million penalty from the companies.

“We have finalized the case of a housing company for a penalty of Rs 4.6 million,” said Baskota. He, however, declined to name the housing company because IRO is investigating the company in another case also. The office is currently investigating five cases which comprise a shopping mall, school, cinema hall, trading house and a mobile trading company.

“Our major focus is on house rent tax, income tax and VAT evaders,” said Baskota. Inland Revenue Department (IRD) is planning to revise the tax policy based on the experiences of ongoing raids and monitoring. “We are promoting self-declaration in different taxes,” said Dirgha Raj Mainali, director of IRD’s monitoring section.

Hence, the IRO offices have intensified monitoring and stepped up raids.