04 July 2004	Sunday	15 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

ISLAMABAD, July 3: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has decided to establish three new collectorates of appeals at Hyderabad, Multan and Peshawar for speedy disposal of cases to facilitate the taxpayers. The decision was taken during a conference of collectors of customs (appeals and adjudications) , headed by CBR Chairman M. Abdullah Yousuf here on Saturday.

According to an official announcement, the conference also took notice of the problems of lack of support staff and infrastructure in the appeal collectorates and decided to make up deficiencies after a reappraisal of the existing resources, present workloads and consequent needs.

The conference also deliberated the issue of frivolous appeals pending before different fora and decided that the committees be informed to review the pending litigation to expedite their task of identifying such appeals.

It was further decided to direct the executive collectorates to form committees to review the departmental appeals before the collectors (appeals) in order to weed out unnecessary appeals.

It was decided that where there was larger pendency, the collectors should redistribute the work among their subordinate officers.

The CBR chairman emphasized the need for exploiting the full potential of tax administration in order to meet the challenges of modern world. He identified the weaknesses in various aspects of the indirect taxes and directed the respective members of the board to take steps to remove them.

He urged that the taxpayers be encouraged to make use of new avenue of "alternate dispute resolution".

The CBR chief explained the new legal provisions in respect of alternate dispute resolution which provides for appointment of committees comprising one or two persons on the panel of chartered accountants and representative of the department to settle the dispute between the department and taxpayers.