ISLAMABAD, Nov 15: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) will work quickly to dispose of the remaining 300 tax appeals pending in the Supreme Court to facilitate the taxpayers.

Presiding over a meaeting of the 13th national tax conference, Chairman CBR M Abdullah Yousuf informed the audience that he had held a meeting with Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who agreed to the disposal of the remaining tax appeals.

Member (Legal), Mumtaz Ahmed Sheikh informed the meeting that a strategy was being evolved in collaboration with the appellate tribunals, aimed at to dispose of 90 per cent of the remaining 12,000 appeals (all taxes), pending at the tribunal level, by June, 2007. He requested the commissioners to identify important revenue cases for early disposal.

Mr Sheikh said that the CBR had total 55,000 appeals relating to direct taxes at the commissionerate level in 2003-04, now the number has been reduced to 1,320 only, which are all fresh.Earlier, Member direct taxes Salman Nabi told the meeting that the CBR had achieved 32 per cent growth in direct taxes collection and 23 per cent in filing of returns in the first four months (July–October) of the current financial year.

The conference was further informed that the refunds payment made in first quarter of the current financial year was Rs10 billion as compared to Rs5.2 billion in the same period last year, showing an increase of 92 per cent.