5, April 2005	Tuesday	25 Safar 1426

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ISLAMABAD, April 4: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) will establish a specialized integrated tax and customs section to investigate the alleged offences by taxpayers/traders. This was announced by Member Tax Policy and Reform M.S. Lal at the launching ceremony of Tax Administration Reform Project (TARP) on Monday. The ceremony was attended by Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Dr Akram Shaikh along with all commissioners of income tax, collectors of customs and sales tax from across the country.

Mr Lal said after careful, documented and professional investigation of cases, the section would recommend prosecution.

Together with a highly qualified and trained staff of investigators, the section would be provided with well-developed, integrated information technology and communication systems, he added.

“This highly-specialized function does not yet exist in the CBR and will need to be established. Assistance will be sought from revenue and customs investigations of other countries since the CBR’s investigation staff will also be required to establish liaison with international and national organization to facilitate mutual support and assistance in their respective investigations,” he said.

Elaborating the main features of the reforms, Mr Lal said under the reform process, the CBR would develop career paths, update position descriptions for employees, provide extensive training to officers and establish internal audit centre for planning and programme direction.

He said a string of measures would be taken to improve revenue operation to optimize maximum coverage and revenue during the forthcoming years. It was hoped that revenue would increase by 0.2 per cent of the GDP every year.

Speaking on the occasion, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Akram Shaikh said he hoped that the reformed CBR would help in reducing cost of doing business in the country to make Pakistani products more competitive.

He, however, observed that along with administrative reforms, reforms in the tax policies were also vital for sustainable growth.

The chairman hoped that this project would not meet the same fate which, he said, happened with scores of good projects initiated during the last many years in different sectors. He said change in the mindset was necessary to accept all these new concepts under the reform process.

Senior World Bank official in Islamabad Abid Hassan proposed to the CBR to regularly monitor the process of reforms of tax administration.

He said monitoring of the reforms process was necessary along with maintaining patience among the tax officials about the reform process.

Giving lecture on the Customs Administrative Reforms (CARE), Azhar Majeed said due to reforms in the customs, average dwell time of the arrival of vessels would be reduced to 24 hours and the average customs clearance time would be reduced to four hours.

He said under the reforms process a paperless environment would be created due to complete automation of all functions, which, he added, would result in creating transparency, enhancing customs control, eradicating maladministration and reducing business cost.

Another World Bank official, Mudassar Khan, said it was necessary to carry out reforms of tax administration, which would improve quality of revenue administration and influence investment.

Elaborating the main features of the risk-based refund processing, the collector, Sohail Afzal, said good claimants of refunds would get their refunds without any delay. Through this system, he said, fake claims would also be detected.