ISLAMABAD, July 15: The Central Board of Revenue on Friday decided to constitute special teams in field offices to explore new taxpayers. The decision is aimed at meeting the tax collection target of Rs690 billion set for the fiscal year 2005-06.

An official told Dawn that the special teams would carry out desk audits of income tax returns filed for the tax year 2004 to identify those taxpayers who have understated their incomes.

These teams would also be entrusted with a task to review the data already collected from Wapda, PTCL, banks, automobile manufacturers and cellular phone service providers for cross matching with return fillers to detect the nil-filers.

The decision, among others, was taken at the quarterly conference of regional commissioners of income tax, director generals of large taxpayers units and commissioners of income tax held here on Friday.

The conference was informed that total revenue collection for the fiscal year 2004-05 stood at Rs590.6 billion. CBR Chairman M. Abdullah Yusuf expressed the confidence that this total would improve further when the final figures of tax collection would be received.

The CBR chairman, however, said that there was still a lot needed to be done. “We must not slowdown our efforts and have to continue our job with same missionary zeal to achieve the current financial year’s target of Rs690 billion,” he added.

“Our ultimate goal is to enhance the tax-to-GDP ratio by broadening tax base,” he remarked. Mr Yusuf advised the participants to evolve measures to enhance the tax-to-GDP ratio at the desired level.

The CBR chairman told the conference that there would be only 0.2 per cent addition in the existing tax-to-GDP ratio of nine per cent even if the revenue collection target of Rs690 billion is achieved.

“We, therefore, still have to go a long way to achieve the objective. We must also benefit from the strategies and experiences of other countries that have successfully broadened their tax base in the recent past,” he added.

Other decisions taken in the meeting included misuse of exemption certificates in cases of manufacturers, data entry for the tax year 2004, data entry exercise for RTOs, updating positions of withdrawal of appeals from the Supreme Court, high courts and income tax tribunals and removal of infraction cases.