02 May 2004	Sunday	11 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

FAISALABAD, May 1: A central data warehouse is being established in Central Board of Revenue (CBR) to monitor all stages from filing of returns, payment of tax, verification , tallying and refund of Sales Tax to cut out delays in refund to exporters and to introduce hassle-free refund regime.

This was disclosed by CBR chairman Abdullah Yousaf while addressing the members of All Pakistan Cloth Exporters Association (Apcea) here.

He said the board was fully cognizant of the importance of Sales Tax refund for exporters and of smooth working and implementation of Sales Tax regime to facilitate the exporters to concentrate on marketing and promotion of exports. It was in this context that the post of Member Exports in CBR has been revived and a senior and experienced officer has been posted.

Explaining the inherent irritants in existing system, he identified refund as one of the major irritant in sales tax environment and said that an automatic system should be devised with minimum discretionary power of the tax officials.

Spelling out the concept of Central Data Warehouse, he said that it would have complete record of the returns submitted by registered parties.

The applications for refund will be verified and paid under a system with minimum involvement of individuals. He also stressed upon the exporters to give their inputs to further improve this system, which should efficiently deliver in the fast changing environment of globalization.

He asked chairman Apcea to send a delegation to Islamabad to have meetings with Member Exports and Member ST to discuss the modalities for this system "I will also like to share views with them after fundamental issues are sorted out with necessary solutions", he added.

Commenting upon the salient features of the proposed system, he said that it would tally and verify the invoices and transfer their refund electronically without any wastage of time. However, it would be possible if missing links were put in place, he added.