March 25, 2006	Saturday	Safar 24, 1427

LAHORE, March 24: Central Board of Revenue (CBR) Chairman Abdullah Yousuf has called for enhancing the tax—to-GDP ratio in order to generate enough revenue, which could help the government to develop infrastructure needed to enhance country’s exports.

He expressed these views while speaking at the launching of a book on sales tax and addressing businessmen at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Friday.

Mr Yousuf said that at present, the tax to GDP ratio stood at 10 per cent. “No doubt, revenue has now increased as our GDP has risen to $125 billion from $65 billion some six years ago. The CBR share has increased as the cake becomes bigger and it would be a happy sign if we could be able to enhance our tax-to-GDP ratio from the current 10 per cent to 12-15 per cent,” he added.

The CBR chairman said that the country’s future lay in a sustained high growth rate and it was in the interest of both the government and the business community. He said that the CBR was striving for making the things simpler, but the need of the hour was that the business community should remove all apprehensions about the CBR and should work in close coordination with this department.

Talking about under-invoicing and smuggling, he said that the chamber should form committees which could pin- point the smuggling-prone and under-invoiced items to curb this menace.

Regarding under-invoicing of items being imported from China, he said that the CBR had signed a bilateral agreement with the Chinese Customs to exchange information, electronically, on prices and quantity of items being imported or exported.

He also disclosed that the self-assessment scheme was also being introduced in customs like other tax departments. He said that a project was already under implementation at the Karachi International Container Terminal (KICT) by the name of CARE. It would be replicated in other ports too. He said that it would help reducing the average customs clearance time from four and a half days to only 10 hours. The new clearance system also eliminated physical contact between the importers and Customs officials curtailing chances of corruption.

Mr Yousuf disclosed that the concept of one Customs would also be introduced which might take one to one-and-a-half years.

Later talking to newsmen, he expressed the hope that the CBR would not only achieve the revenue target of Rs690 billion for the current fiscal year but would also surpass it.