ISLAMABAD (November 03 2003): The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has started audit of commercial exporters to ascertain the admissibility of genuine sales tax refund issued to them.
Sources said Business Recorder here on Sunday that certain collectors alleged commercial exporters of intentionally resorting to audit by the Directorate of Revenue Receipt Audit (DRRA) to avoid sales tax department auditors.
Resultantly, it becomes difficult for sales tax department to conduct another audit of already audited exporter.
The collectors further alleged that the exporters use this method to skip checking of refund record by sales tax auditors.
Sources stated that the CBR wants to investigate the total number of audits of exporters conducted by Directorate of Revenue Receipt Audit (DRRA) in comparison to audits conducted by sales tax auditors.
The CBR opined that commercial exporters usually get a clean chit by DRRA making it impossible for audit team of sales tax to check the record again.
The CBR has directed all collectors of sales tax to carry out thorough audit of the commercial exporters to ascertain the factual status of refund payments made to them.
In this connection, collector of sales tax, Lahore and collector, enforcement, Karachi have been asked to immediately submit report about the number of audits of commercial exporters conducted by DRRA during the last three years.
When contacted, tax practitioners said that there is a rat race going on between DRRA and sales tax auditors as both are in a hurry of serving notices to the taxpayers for carrying out audit of maximum commercial exporters.
