LAHORE, Oct 30: The government is more interested in documenting the economy of the country than generating revenue because this exercise will yield more revenue in future.

This was stated by Lahore Collector of Sales Tax Akhtar Ali in his talk at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We know that documentation (of the economy) will generate more revenue in the coming years,” he said.

Ali said the organized sector should not have any objections to providing addresses of their buyers, who had still not registered themselves under the sales tax law. It was in the interest of the economy and the industry to register the non-registered sectors.

He said his collectorate was conducting 200 audits each month and the CBR was constantly striving for improving the quality of the audit reports so that taxpayers were not harassed. He said the CBR had been asked to “delist 28 auditors out of 37 appointed on account of their poor performance”. He said the “auditors were discouraged from levelling frivolous and baseless objections” for saving the taxpayers from harassment.

Ali underscored the need to educate businessmen and traders to “acquaint them with the tax laws and apprise them of their rights and liabilities as soon as they register themselves”.

He admitted that the release of the sales tax refunds had been delayed because of numerous factors, including the “lack of trust between the taxpayers and tax collectors”. He, however, said “the CBR was trying to improve the situation by expediting the release of refunds. He urged the exporters to apply for the gold category status for release of refunds in 72 working hours, adding the CBR was trying to expedite the payment of refunds to all exporters as quickly as possible.

Ali urged the businessmen to bear with the inefficiency of the department, saying they are trying to be as efficient as possible under the given circumstances. He said a transparent procedure is being put in place for the release of the refunds on a first-come first-served basis.