LAHORE, Feb 17: The Central Board of Revenue is undertaking an independent review and scrutiny of every sales tax audit report to curb wrong doings and mal practices of auditors, said CBR member (audit) Syed Perwaiz Amjad here on Tuesday.

Speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he said the CBR would classify the audit reports into three categories and auditors responsible for below average audit reports would be reprimanded accordingly.

Similarly, the CBR would also take strict notice of unfair detection in any audit report to help curb the questionable practices of the auditors, he added.

"The CBR has given strict instructions to sales tax auditors to follow the FPCCI approved guidelines while conducting the audits and restrict themselves to account books only.

The auditors would have to seek special permission from the collector sales tax for getting access to other documents. The idea behind all these steps is to make the CBR a facilitator for the taxpayers, as by and large the business community now wants to pay taxes," the member said.

About non-acceptance level of value-addition, Mr Amjad said the CBR had empowered the sales tax collectors to accept even the lesser level of value-addition because every business carries probability of losses as well.

About the irritants pointed out by the LCCI members in the section 73, he said the CBR was working on this issue to remove the irritants.

On harsh penalties, he said the CBR would waive penalties if the taxpayer deposits principal amount detected last year along with additional 25 per cent of this amount.

Earlier, LCCI president Mian Anjum Nisar called upon the sales tax department to adopt lenient view of errors committed by the newly registered persons. He also sought permission to hold stock in case of carry forward.

The CBR official assured the businessmen that the audits were being made business-friendly. He, however, stressed upon the need to provide better living wages to the tax officials that would ultimately curb the element of corruption existing in the system.