January 1, 2003	Wednesday	Shawwal 27, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 31: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) is set to hire the services of specialists from private sector to detect businessmen who understate their sales and income, CBR spokesman Vakil Ahmed Khan has said.

Talking to newsmen after a CBR Restructuring Committee meeting here on Tuesday, he said the board on the issue was approaching the finance ministry to clear the plan and avail the services that were part of the restructuring programme devised by donor agencies.

The meeting discussed the future strategy that also included creation of inter-zonal tax committees and inter-collectorate bodies to make a long-standing demand for a tax-connectivity operation.

These committees would also be exchanging the taxpayers data to discourage evasion.

The spokesman said the committees would create a basic information exchange mechanism, which would help detect under-declarations.

The experts will help the CBR to create modules of different major industries like cement, sugar and textiles on their electricity, gas and other input-consumption.

Consumption levels were required to determine actual production and sales, and in the final analysis, income of businessmen, he said.

Mr Khan added that the Large Taxpayer Unit at Karachi and Medium Taxpayer Unit at Lahore currently catered to about 5,000 taxpayers.

Range of these services are bound to expand with the induction of technology and audit exercise to determine actual sales of those businessmen who fall outside the orbit of these institutions.