ISLAMABAD, July 11: The Central Board of Revenue on Monday decided to reduce number of offices of commissioners of income tax (appeals) from the existing 32 to 15 as part of restructuring of the tax administration. A CBR official told Dawn that the decision was taken by CBR Chairman M. Abdullah Yousuf at the quarterly conference of commissioner of income tax (appeals) here on Monday.

The CBR chairman said that as the CIT Appeals had liquidated the entire pendency of income tax appeals by the end of the financial year 2004-05 so there was no need for running such a large number of offices having no work to do. These officers would be used for other purposes under the reform process, said the chairman.

He said that under the universal self-assessment scheme (USAS), whatever the taxpayers declare in their returns would be accepted as their final liability, so there would be no question about appeals in future.

The conference was told that out of over 58,000 appeals, the CIT Appeals had decided 55,021 appeals during the financial year 2004-05, leaving behind a normal balance of only 3,123 appeals.

An official announcement said that the conference was informed that total pending appeals as on July 1, 2004 were 35,753 in which revenue of Rs37.3 billion was involved. During the year under review, 21,788 fresh appeals were filed by the taxpayers, thus raising the appeal stock to 58,144.

By the end of the last financial year (2004-05), the entire appeals stock had been finished and on July 1, appeal commissioners were left with only 3,123 appeals, involving revenue of Rs9.1 billion.

The CBR chairman said the appeal commissioners would now be in a better position to deal with the limited number of appeals and would be able to give quality decisions, which would have fair chance to stand the test of appeals before the appellant tribunals and superior courts.

Mr Yousuf expressed the hope that with the introduction of major changes in the system i.e. voluntary compliance through self-assessment, the number of appeals would be considerably reduced.

He said that as a premier tax collecting institution, the CBR must play its due role in enhancing tax-to-GDP ratio, which at present was not at the desired level. He said that despite the fact that the CBR had achieved start of the year revenue collection target of Rs580 billion for the financial year 2004-05 and was also expected to exceed the revised target of Rs590 billion, the tax-to-GDP ratio did not compare favourably with other countries of the region.

“A wholehearted and dedicated effort was needed to come up to the expectations of the government regarding tax-to-GDP ratio,” he added.

Expressing the need for expanding the tax base, the chairman said the CBR this year would focus on adding more taxpayers to the tax base. “In our efforts to find new taxpayers we must educate, facilitate, and convince people to become contributors in the national development,” he said.

Mr Yousuf told the conference that 12 regional taxpayers offices planned under the ongoing tax reform programme would come on ground this year.