ISLAMABAD, Dec 20: The Central Board of Revenue has decided to take additional measures for reducing the inadmissible refund claims pertaining to exports to countries like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, low tariff Middle Eastern, African and Southeast Asian states.

Officials told Dawn on Saturday that the decision for extra checks was taken following the observation that some of the commercial exporters and their suppliers were not found available at their given addresses, failed to produce relevant sales tax records and over-invoiced their supplies/exports. This has resulted in undue payment of refunds to the exporters, causing losses to the national kitty, the officials added.

To control the menace, the CBR has worked out additional procedures in addition to the procedures already being followed under the Sales Tax Refund Rules, 2002.

These measures would be applicable on exports of bedsheets, pillow cases, ladies chaddar/shawl/scarf, fabric dyed/printed, ladies maxies, quilt covers, terry towels and bath robes.

According to the procedures, a copy of which was made available to Dawn, showed that the officer incharge of the refund division in whose jurisdiction the refund claim falls shall issue a letter under registered post or through courier service requesting the proprietor or managing partner of the exporting firm and its suppliers to provide the following documents: attested copy of the National Identity Card; bank certificate confirming the name, address, bank account number and other relevant particulars of the proprietors or managing partner of the firm and copies of despatch note, receipt note, transport documents and subsequent entries in the books of claimant/supplier that verify the physical movement of the goods and copies of the claimant that verify that goods are deposited in and taken out of their warehouse and physically exported.

In case of doubt or suspicion, the above mentioned documents will be physically verified by the processing/sanctioning staff.

The processing and sanctioning staff shall maintain updated lists of blacklisted/suspended persons and cross check from the same, besides verification from through the computerized refund system of STAAR to ensure that no refund is sanctioned against fake invoices.

The claims shall be processed and sanctioned on the basis of values of export goods determined by the collectorate of Exports, Customs House, Karachi, through the Price Check Committee (PCC) or on export value indicators developed on the basis of input-output ratios determined by the Input-Output Coefficient Organization (IOCO). And in case the processing staff/sanctioning officer has reason to believe that the value of any exported goods is on higher side and a PCC decision/value indicator is not available, a reference might be made through the additional collector (incharge refunds) to the collectorate of export for determination of correct value of such goods.

The bank credit advice of such exporters shall be verified and after such checking and verification, the refund claims shall be processed in accordance with the procedure prescribed under the Sales Tax Act, 1990.