The Federal Board of Revenue is urging small shopkeepers and retailers to opt into a voluntary simplified tax scheme (Dawn).
The terms
| | | |—|—| | Rate | 1pc of turnover | | Minimum tax | Rs25,000 | | Return | one page | | Exempt from | routine audit, POS integration, digital invoicing |
The FBR’s slogan for it is “One Page, One Return, One Percent”. It is made under SRO 1166(I)/2026.
Registered shops receive a green identification plate, under which, in the board’s description, “field teams would generally not enter a registered business premises unless a major anomaly was identified.”
Chief Commissioner (Inland Revenue) Lahore Fiza Batool presented it at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday. The board has set up a helpline, a WhatsApp facility and an open-court mechanism for grievances.
What is actually being traded
The state is offering to stop looking. Audit exemption, no point-of-sale integration and no digital invoicing mean the FBR gives up the tools by which it would verify a turnover figure — in exchange for the shopkeeper declaring one at all.
For a sector that has defeated every documentation attempt for thirty years, that may be the only trade available. It is still worth naming: this scheme collects revenue by abandoning verification, and the 1 percent is levied on a number the taxpayer supplies and nobody checks.
The green plate is the interesting detail
“Field teams would generally not enter” is protection from harassment, and harassment by tax officials is a real and documented grievance. It is also, read the other way, an official acknowledgement that entry by field teams is a thing shopkeepers need protecting from.
What is not established
No figure has been published for how many retailers have opted in, or for expected revenue. No deadline for opting in was reported. Retailer representatives were not quoted, so the response of the trader bodies that have blocked previous schemes is unknown.
