February 25, 2007	Sunday	Safar 7, 1428

LAHORE, Feb 24: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) is working on different strategies to pursue traders to register themselves.

This was stated by CBR chairman Abdullah Yousuf while speaking to businessmen at a function, organised by the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce Industry on Saturday.

He also asked the Federation to convince traders to register themselves with the CBR to meet Rs1 trillion tax target in the future.

The federation leadership, however, urged him to resolve traders’ and importers’ issues with the tax authorities to win their confidence.

The chairman said the CBR had been reformed and tax collection had seen an impressive growth in the last five years. He said the CBR was focusing on improving service delivery and working relationships with traders.

He admitted that new systems being introduced by the CBR were still passing through a transition period and urged the taxpayers to bear with the situation. He expressed the hope that the systems like CARE, SAS and others would start functioning properly soon.

He said the existing tax to GDP ratio of 10.5 per cent was suicidal for the country and added it would be raised to 15 per cent in 100 years.

He said the CBR was evaluating the tax potential of different sectors and is in a process of interacting with concerned associations.

He said that the GDP growth could only be sustainable if the government ensures timely investment in infrastructure development, which is not possible without expansion in tax net.

Mr Abdullah Yousaf further said that the restructuring process of Central Board of Revenue (CBR) will be completed by the year 2009, transforming it into a fully transparent and efficient organisation, adds APP.

"About 50 per cent of the CBR reforms process initiated by the present government in 2001, has so far been completed," said the CBR chairman, adding there were certain anomalies in the share of a particular sector in GDP and its contribution in the revenue. He referred to transport and wholesale and retail sectors whose contribution was much lower as compared their weightage in country's GDP. Later talking to newsmen, Abdullah Yousaf said that there was no plan to cut down capital value tax (CVT) on capital market.