ISLAMABAD, Nov 9: The Central Board of Revenue is considering various proposals for enhancing the base of sales tax in a move to tap more potential taxpayers in the net as part of restructuring of the tax administration.

Officials told Dawn that in this connection all collectors of sales tax had been given a task to work out an effective strategy for identifying the potential taxpayers who were not yet registered with the sales tax department.

Initially, it was decided to establish an independent cell in each collectorate of sales tax to be headed by a responsible officer to undertake the task of broadening tax base.

The officials said the decision of broadening sales tax base was taken following the directive of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Elaborating, the officials said that these cells would be required to have regular interaction with large industries and firms located in their areas of jurisdiction, particularly at manufactures level to achieve the desired results.

At present the total number of persons registered with the sales tax department stood at 100,600. Of these 88,000 filed returns with the department. The prime minister has asked the CBR to increase the filing of sales tax return by 15 per cent in each quarter during the current fiscal year.

The number of registered persons declined during the current fiscal year as around 42,000 taxpayers were de-registered from the sales tax net after the government raised the sales tax exemption threshold to Rs5 million for both retailers and manufacturers.

The officials said the cell would interact with trade associations and chambers of commerce and industry to seek their help in identifying the potential taxpayers who were still not registered with the sales tax department.

The cell would also analyze the data compiled by the income tax department about the businessmen through the centralized data bank established recently for identifying the taxpayers.

The information collected from the taxpayers through the income tax returns form for the year 2004 would be one of the major sources of detecting tax evaders, added the officials. They said the CBR had already developed software and provided it to the collectorate for determination of minimum tax liability of non-filers.

The cell, the officials said, would also follow up the recovery of sales tax from the non-filers. Each collectorate will also be given targets for maximum recovery from the non-filers, added the officials.

The government had already introduced amendments in the sales tax law, empowering the sales tax officer to determine minimum tax liability of a registered person in case of non-filers.