ISLAMABAD, Jan 25: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) was carrying out a study to ascertain the actual share of different sectors of the economy as their percentage of the total federal taxes.

This was stated by CBR Chairman M. Abdullah Yusuf while addressing the quarterly conference of collectors of sales tax and federal excise here on Wednesday.

Mr Yusuf informed the meeting that the revenue collection from different sectors was far less than their existing potential. “A concerted effort was needed to catch the reliable data to enable the department to confront with the potential taxpayers,” he added.

Talking about the tax-to-GDP ratio, he said that despite the achievement of revenue targets, set for all major federal taxes, the ratio still remained one of the lowest in the region.

“Some serious thinking, planning and efforts are required for a quantum jump in tax-to-GDP ratio,” he added.

The conference was informed that the collection of sales tax and federal excise duty during the second quarter (Oct-Dec) 2005-06 stood at Rs69.0 billion and Rs13.1 billion, respectively, as compared to Rs58.4 billion and Rs12.3 billion the same period last year.

On achievement of targets set for the period, the CBR chairman said that it was satisfying and added “we must try to organize and restructure ourselves to operate as an effective tax machinery to ensure that the people pay their due taxes.”

The collectors briefed the conference about the performance of their collectorates on achievement of the sales tax and federal excise collection targets, follow-up actions taken on the decisions taken in the last meeting, progress on collection of retail tax, registration of car dealers, refund related issues, NTN cleansing exercise, Alternate Dispute Resolution, recovery of sales tax and federal excise arrears etc.

Member Legal Mumtaz Ahmed Sheikh informed the conference that the Supreme Court’s Special Bench, constituted to hear the CBR cases, would again be in session from Feb 6, 2006.