July 27, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 30, 1427

ISLAMABAD, July 26: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has disposed of 78,000 pending tax cases out of a total of 80,000 cases during the last two years.

CBR Chairman Abdullah Yousuf on Wednesday informed the Public Accounts sub-Committee (PAC) that the remaining 2,000 pending cases, including 1,200 tax appeals and 800 cases pertaining to indirect taxes were all fresh.

Convenor of the committee MNA Riaz Fatiana lauded the CBR's performance in clearing up the huge backlog in a short period and urged other government departments to follow the CBR's strategy to deal with their pending cases.

Mr Yousuf informed the PAC that on the request of the CBR the Supreme Court of Pakistan had constituted a Special Bench in December 2005 to hear tax cases. Out of the total 1,510 cases, filed with the SC, 1,198 have already been disposed of and the verdict on the remaining 312 cases is expected to be given shortly.

The PAC reviewed in detail the audit objections raised by the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) on the functioning of the CBR in the fiscal year 1995-96 and took necessary decisions.

On a query, the CBR chairman informed the committee that in overall revenue collections, the ratio of the direct taxes and indirect taxes was 31 per cent and 69 per cent, respectively.

Mr Yousuf assured the committee that the CBR will provide a list of all bogus cases, which were unearthed by the tax authorities in the last two years and also the revenue recovered from these.

On the issue of refund payments the CBR chief told the PAC that an effective strategy had been evolved to deal with this issue. In this connection, he referred to the zero-rating of five major export industries, which were generating 80 per cent of the total refunds.

The chairman informed the committee that the massive reduction in litigation cases had helped the CBR to cut the number of commissioners (Appeals) from 34 to 16. Four more Appeal commissioners are likely to be spared in the current or next month, he added.