Director General Excise Lahore Umar Sheer Chatha said that vehicles without token tax will have their registration canceled and will be blocked in the system. Even after giving warnings, vehicle owners are not paying the tax, he said. He has ordered that vehicles of big defaulters be seized, and challans (fines) be issued for those who haven t paid for over a year.

Chatha has also given instructions to make road checks more effective and speed up the tax collection process. Excise officials said that about 1.3 million vehicle owners in Punjab pay token tax every year. However, in Lahore, over 800,000 vehicle owners have paid the tax, but more than 500,000 vehicles still have unpaid token tax, they detailed.

The Excise officials also mentioned that around Rs3 billion of token tax are still pending in Lahore. They will also contact banks and leasing companies to collect token tax from vehicles registered in their names.

The purpose of token taxes in Pakistan is to generate revenue for local and provincial governments, primarily for maintaining public infrastructure like roads, transportation services, and urban development. It is a form of vehicle tax that vehicle owners must pay annually in exchange for the right to operate their vehicles legally on public roads.

In addition, token taxes help regulate the number of vehicles on the roads and ensure that all vehicles contribute to the maintenance of road safety and infrastructure. This tax is often used to fund road repairs, traffic management systems, and other public services related to transportation.