ISLAMABAD, May 9: The Central Board of Revenue will soon launch a drive to raise maximum amount sales tax from 368 cement, steel and sugar industries against their actual production during the current fiscal year. Well-placed sources told Dawn on Monday that CBR Chairman M. Abdullah Yousuf had directed all collectors of sales tax and central excise to compile and investigate the actual production of these industries to unearth the short filers.

Around 33 cement industries, 261 steel units and 74 sugar mills across the country filed sales tax returns with the sales tax department.

The statistics showed that the total revenue raised under sales tax from the cement industries stood at Rs4.430 billion, from steel products Rs3.179 billion and from sugar mills Rs8.241 billion during the year 2003-04.

During the first-half of the fiscal year 2004-05, the CBR raised Rs1.653 billion revenue from the cement factories, Rs1.333 billion from the steel products and Rs1.812bn from the sugar mills.

According to the sources, the production of cement industries, sugar mills and steel units had shown a tangible growth during the current fiscal year, but the collection of sales tax from these sectors had declined as compared to the last year.

Elaborating further, the sources said that it was decided to conduct a desk audit of these units by comparing the declared sales of 368 industries in the income tax returns for the tax year 2004 with the sales tax returns filed by them during the same period.

“The desk audit will help unearth those units that are short filers and understated their production during 10 months of the current fiscal year.”

According to the sources, the collectors had also been directed to collect additional information from the ministry of industries and production and the income tax department for identifying the short filers in the sectors.

The CBR chairman also directed the collectors to collect the amount of sales tax from these units which they had collected from the consumers. “They have no right to keep the money which they have collected on behalf of the government.”