ISLAMABAD, Aug 4: The income tax department withheld an amount of Rs19.83 billion as refund in 6,700 cases during the fiscal year 2005-06, which helped the department in surpassing the tax collection target set for the same fiscal year.

This was revealed in the 10th Income Tax National Conference headed by Central Board of Revenue Chairman M. Abdullah Yousuf here on Friday. It was attended by CBR members, regional commissioners of income tax, director general of large taxpayers units of Karachi and Lahore and commissioners of income tax.

Commenting on the pending refund stock, the CBR chairman directed the tax officers to clean up the pendency. "This issue needs to be sorted out at the earliest so as the current financial year should get us to the point where we are totally current," Mr Yusuf remarked.

Earlier, member direct taxes Salman Nabi informed the conference that the opening balance on July 1, 2005 was 62,332 refund claims involving an amount of Rs33.529 billion. During the year 2005-06, 224,449 more claims were added to it involving an amount of Rs40.269 billion.

Out of these claims, 77,634 claims were deleted due to certain reasons in which Rs20.622 billion were involved, thus leaving the total as 209,147 claims with an amount of Rs53.962 billion.

From July 2005 to June 2006, the commissionerates disposed of 199,118 claims which involved an amount of Rs34 billion, thus leaving the closing balance of 6,700 cases involving an amount of Rs19.83 billion.

Mr Yusuf asked the income tax commissioners not to become complacent and use all their energies and professional skills to enhance the tax-to-GDP ratio and broaden the tax base. “We must move forward to achieve the objectives of increasing tax-to-GDP ratio and expanding tax net, which at present are not at the desired level,” the CBR chief added.

While referring to the tax appeals/cases filed in the Supreme Court, the Central Board of Revenue chairman informed the participants that out of about 1,600 cases, 1,300 had been disposed of and hearing of the remaining 300 cases was in progress.

He said among the disposed of cases one case was pending for the last 30 years, adding that by the end of the current fiscal, “we will achieve total update and liquidation of pendency”.

On the collection of withholding tax from different sectors, the conference was informed that against a total collection of Rs48.38 billion in 2004-05, the withholding tax collection in 2005-06 was Rs59.574 billion, which included collection from imports (Rs26.3 billion), exports (Rs10.5 billion), petroleum products (Rs1.1 billion), cash withdrawal from banks (Rs2.4 billion), stock exchanges (Rs2.6 billion), telephone (Rs7 billion), electricity bills (Rs5 billion), transport (Rs1 billion), etc.

The conference was also briefed on creation/expansion of data base for the tax year 2005. A total number of 228,291 new taxpayers had been added to the tax net.

Region-wise break-up is: central region 40,082; northern region 41,127; southern region 89,391; eastern region 57,617; and corporate region 77.