ISLAMABAD, July 13: The Chairman Central Board of Revenue (CBR) M. Abdullah Yousuf on Wednesday directed all the collectors of customs to come up with concrete suggestions for resolving the issues of smuggling, under-valuation and mis-reporting causing revenue loss to the national kitty.

He was addressing the Quarterly Conference of Collector of Customs to review the pendency of indirect taxes appeals and adjudication during 2004-05.

Taking serious note of the loss of revenue due to smuggling, under-valuation and misreporting, the chairman asked for workable solution of the problems.

In this regard, he referred to the smuggling of polyester cloth, which has been effectively checked through putting new tariff in place. All smugglers of polyester cloth were now in a quandary and feel ditched by the fiscal measures of the government, the chairman observed.

Giving review of the appeals, the conference was informed that out of a total number of 24,473 adjudication cases and 6071 appeals, available for disposal with the collectorates (Adjudication & Appeals) during the last fiscal year, 21,601 adjudication cases and 5,155 appeals have been decided by the end of June 2005.

The total number of pending appeals left with the Appeal & Adjudication Collectorates as of July 1, 2005 stands reduced to only 916 involving an amount of Rs643 million. This includes 289 customs appeals, 613 of sales tax and only 14 appeals relating to Central Excise duty.

The chairman directed the adjudication and appeal collectors to ensure quality in their decisions. Simple and straight merit should be our consideration, nothing else, Mr Yusuf remarked.

The conference took important decisions regarding valuation of imported goods, officers job description, internal and external audit, anti-smuggling efforts, dispo sal of confiscated vehicles and narcotics and modernisation of customs labs, review of litigations.