ISLAMABAD, Feb 17: The tax authorities have disposed of 23,234 income tax appeals during the first half year (July-December) period of the current fiscal year.

This was disclosed during the quarterly conference of Commissioners of Income Tax (Appeals) held here on Thursday headed by CBR Chairman M. Abdullah Yusuf.

The meeting was informed that 23,234 appeals out of total pending appeals of 35,754 on July 1, 2004 had been disposed of during the first six months of current financial year. However, 14,134 fresh appeals had been filed during this period. The disposal achievement against the target set for first half of the year 2004-05 was 127.24 per cent.

During the conference, the number of pending appeals, relating to individual taxpayers/companies, their age, revenue involved in these appeals and the strategy for their early disposal was reviewed.

The income tax commissioners (Appeals) from all over the country briefed the conference about the performance of their commissionerates regarding disposal of appeals in second quarter of the financial year 2004-05.

The total amount of revenue involved in pending appeals which was Rs37.3 billion on July 1, 2004 had been reduced to Rs19.4 billion on Feb 1, 2005. The CBR chairman called upon the ITCs to make all-out efforts to clear the pending appeals by June 30, 2005. He said that priority must be given to the disposal of those appeals in which heavy revenue was involved.