Tax Consultant in Johar Town, Lahore

Freelancers: get the four things right

There is a combination that turns "I do some work online" into a documented professional position, and every serious freelancer in Johar Town should have all four:

1. Registered with FBR, an NTN, so you exist in the system
2. Filing returns, which is what actually puts you on the ATL, not the registration
3. Money arriving through the banking channel, with the remittance advices kept, because the export treatment depends on that evidence
4. PSEB registered, the sector credential, and it has a freelancer category with a lower fee than the company one

Freelancers who do all four can evidence their income to a bank, a landlord, a visa officer or FBR. Freelancers who do none of them have an income that exists only in a Payoneer dashboard.

The mistake that costs software houses money

A firm sets up assuming it is a pure exporter. Then it takes a domestic client, a system for a Pakistani bank, an app for a local startup, a website for a Gulberg retailer. That domestic work is a supply of services in Punjab and falls squarely within the PRA regime, entirely separately from anything to do with export concessions.

Firms that ignore this until a notice arrives face a demand covering every domestic invoice they have ever raised. Once you have both revenue streams you need apportionment, applied consistently, from the month the first local client signs.

Your contractors probably own your code

Almost every software house here engages developers as contractors. Very few have written IP assignments from all of them. Work created by an independent contractor does not automatically transfer to the person paying for it, paying the invoice is not the same as owning the copyright.

This stays invisible until an acquirer or an enterprise client runs due diligence, and then it is the item that holds up the transaction. A short assignment clause in every contractor agreement fixes it, and it is far easier to get signed now than to chase former contractors for later. See agreement drafting.

Do the remittance setup properly at the start

The concessional treatment for exported IT services turns on proceeds arriving in Pakistan through proper banking channels with the documentation retained. Money left in a foreign account, or brought in informally, is very hard to characterise as export proceeds, and usually creates a wealth statement problem for the owner at the same time. Set the banking up correctly on day one; it is much harder to reconstruct in year three.