January 18, 2002	Friday	Ziqa'ad 3, 1422

ISLAMABAD, Jan 17: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) is set to initiate an inquiry into cases of taxpayers who had misreported their real income in returns filed for the assessment year 2001-02.

For the first time in the history of the CBR, all the income tax returns filed during the assessment year 2001-02 have been fed into the computers, an official told Dawn. Previously, all this was done manually.

Member, direct taxes and official spokesman for CBR, Vakil Ahmed Khan said that all record of the returns filed by the assessee during the assessment year 2001-02 were being transferred to the computers.

Similarly, he said that details of income obtained from about 1.3 million survey forms have already been transferred to computers.

Mr Khan said that both data will be compared in order to trace discrepancies in the returns. If discrepancies were found, the assessee will be subjected to explanation, he added.

However, the spokesman said that if the competent authority board was not satisfied with the explanation of the assessee, CBR might levy additional taxes and penalty on it.

According to the final figures compiled by the CBR till October 1, 2001, the last date for filing tax returns, the total return filed in the income tax department stood at 0.87 million as against 1.05 million last year.

For the first time the last date of tax returns was not extended this year due to which the returns remain low as compared to the last year.