ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has decided to revise the existing income tax rules to make it easily understandable for the common taxpayers.

The new income tax rules would be finalized by the end of December 2001, an official source in the CBR told Dawn on Tuesday.

The existing income tax rules, enacted in 1981, were, according to the source, ambiguous and complicated.

These rules, besides creating problems for the taxpayers as well as tax officials, have been causing difficulties in understanding by the concerned officials and taxpayers.

Therefore, the official said, the government has decided to make new rules mostly in simple and plain language so that it could be interpreted by even an ordinary taxpayer.

The proposed rules would be made public in the first week of January 2002 to seek comments, opinions and suggestions from the relevant stakeholders.

CBR had already started work on the task of amending the income tax rules that had enacted in 1981.

The changing of the rules were at a preliminary stage and it would be finalized by the end of the current calendar year, adding that the overhauling of the tax laws were part of the government reforms programme.

Furthermore, the rules would be reviewed in the light of the new Income Tax Ordinance 2001.

To make the rules more understandable for the taxpayers, the official said besides amending the existing rules, additional and fresh rules would also be formulated.

The government has already completed the reforming of Income Tax Ordinance 1979 and the new law has already been made public a few months ago to get comments and suggestion from the taxpayers, tax officials and other stakeholders.

All the comments, suggestion after necessary vetting would be made part and parcel of the new income tax law, which would come into force from July 1, 2002.