November 17, 2001	Saturday	Ramazan 1, 1422

ISLAMABAD, Nov 16: The government is planning to merge the central excise in sales tax department as a part of the tax administration restructuring plan.

The merger would be carried out in phases, which is likely to be completed in three years, a senior CBR official told Dawn on Friday.

Under the proposed plan, the post of the member, central excise duty would be abolished, and all the administrative and other functions of the CED department would come under the control of the member sales tax.

The CBR official, however, said that the existing CED on major items would remain in vogue, whereas the CED on 11 services had already been converted into sales tax in the budget 2001-02.

He clarified that the CED was converted into sales tax on those items, which were already under sales tax.

Official was of the opinion that no more CED would be converted into sales tax, as the government would not be in a position to cover up the loss incurred in case of complete abolishing of the CED.

Justifying the need of the merger, official said that it would not only save money for the national kitty but would also act as incentive for the taxpayers.

Explaining the procedure of the collection of CED, the official said that the duty would be collected under self- clearance system in the proposed system.

He said, “the mode of collection of central excise duty would almost be similar to that of sales tax collection.”

There would be no more separate collectorate for the central excise duty, and all the existing staff would be adjusted in other departments, the official said.

The implementation of re-structuring plan will commence following the formal approval of the cabinet in the mid of March.