PRA Sahulat app: scan the QR on your restaurant bill to check the tax is real

If you have ever looked at a 16 percent line on a restaurant bill in Lahore and wondered whether it actually reaches the government, Punjab Revenue Authority has given you a way to check.

The PRA Sahulat mobile application lets you scan the QR code printed on a receipt and verify in one tap whether it is genuine.

How it works

1. Download PRA Sahulat from the Apple App Store or Google Play.
2. Open the app and scan the QR code printed on your receipt.
3. The app confirms in one click whether the receipt is genuine.

That is the whole process. There is no registration, no CNIC entry and no fee.

Which businesses this covers

PRA collects sales tax on services in Punjab, and the sectors named include telecom, banks and insurance, hotels and restaurants, courier services, advertising, IT, legal services, construction, beauty salons and property developers.

In practice the receipts you will be scanning are from restaurants, salons, hotels and courier companies, because those are the ones you get on paper with a QR code.

Why this matters to you, not just to PRA

When a restaurant charges you a services tax line and the receipt does not verify, you have paid a tax that did not go to the government. The amount is small on one bill. Across a family's spending in a year it is not.

There is a second reason to scan. A verified receipt is a paper trail. If you are a filer and you are claiming business expenses, or if you are disputing a charge on a card statement, a receipt that PRA's own system confirms is a stronger document than one that does not.

A scan that fails is worth raising with the business at the counter before you pay, not after.

The rate

PRA's standard sales tax on services in Punjab is charged at the rate notified for the sector, and restaurants and salons commonly bill it at a reduced rate for card and digital payments versus cash. Check the rate printed on your own bill against what you were charged, and work out the tax on any amount with our sales tax calculator.

This is a Punjab scheme. Sindh Revenue Board, KPRA and BRA run their own systems, and the PRA app will not verify a receipt issued in Karachi or Peshawar.