KARACHI, June 27: Central Board of Revenue Chairman Mohammad Abdullah Yousuf said on Monday that all internal taxes, including income tax, sales tax, customs duty and excise duty, would be brought under ‘one roof’ by setting up 12 regional tax offices all over the country. He said under the third phase of reforms agenda, the regional tax offices would start functioning by the next year and all medium taxpayers units (MTUs) would be merged with these offices.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the MTU Karachi, the CBR chairman said there were challenges as well as opportunities and presently the biggest issue was how to maintain the high growth of over eight per cent achieved this year.

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan was chief guest on the occasion.

Mr Yousuf said that in order to sustain the current growth rate, the country needed a minimum level of local and foreign investment for which all-out efforts were being made to keep the environment conducive by making the tax system business-friendly.

He advised the commissioners representing both southern and corporate regions not to worry much about targets set by the CBR but try to concentrate on improving facilities provided to taxpayers.

“If business and industry grow it will automatically help the government get its due share in taxes and only then it could remove irritants and solve problems facing the industry,” Mr Yousuf advised tax collectors.

He pointed out that in the past targets were revised downward, but even then they were never achieved. “But for the last couple of years, the revenue collection surpassed the targets,” he adds. He said the duty of tax collectors was not to hinder economic growth but to facilitate it so that more revenue could be collected from the growth of business and industry.

For the last couple of years, he said, the CBR had set its objective of collecting tax on voluntary compliance rather than using force or coercive measures. “This results in more revenue collection than before.”

The CBR chairman said that MTUs for northern areas would be set up at Islamabad and Peshawar, and one each at Quetta and Faisalabad in a year time. He said the MUT Lahore had been functioning since 2002, but all these units would ultimately be merged with 12 regional tax offices.

He said the CBR was giving incentives to the staff for these LTUs and MTUs for providing better services to the taxpayers and had doubled their salaries. All these reforms, he said, were being funded by the government under the World Bank assistance of $150 million.

The CBR chief said the selection of officers and staff for LTUs and MTUs was based on their past performance. “At present 95 per cent of tax cases are finalized on USAS and only five per cent are taken for total audit,” he maintains.