KARACHI, Dec 18: The Sales Tax Wing of the CBR has said that prompt payment of refunds is being made and it is evident from the fact that an amount of Rs18.85bn was refunded during July-Nov 2006-07 as compared to Rs13.45bn the same period last year.

The wing in a press release issued here said that more than Rs240bn had been paid toward export related sales tax refund during the last five years. On backlog of pending refund claims, the wing said that the major hurdle for not liquidating the entire pending refund claims was lack of knowledge on the part of exporters regarding software requirements, which too are little cumbersome, but were being simplified to expedite refund processing.

The analysis of pending claims revealed that around 30,000 claims of Rs15 billion had been pending because the concerned exporters had failed to furnish supportive documents or had not been able to substantiate their claims despite repeated persuasions by the field formations, the press release added.

It said that the Central Board of Revenue had taken a number of measures to liquidate the backlog of refund claims. Owing to these measures, as many as 10,000 fresh claims amounting to over Rs4 billion had also been added as fresh intake during the last couple of months.

It is expected that major chunk of pending claims will be disposed off within the current fiscal year, it added.