ISLAMABAD (September 10 2004): The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has launched a plan for the disposal of 11,316 pending cases selected for audit under Universal Self-Assessment Scheme (USAS).
Out of the total 11,316 pending audit cases, 10,565 were non-corporate cases as on August 1, 2004.
Under the crash programme, the CBR has intensified its efforts to considerably bring down the number of audits before September 15, 2004.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday that the CBR has presented its plan to the Board-in-Council with the mandate of liquidating all audit cases by September 15, 2004.
The region-wise break up shows that Northern Region has 2,738 pending audit cases, including 2,502 non-corporate and 236 corporate cases; Eastern Region, 1,979 cases, including 1,900 non-corporate and 79 corporate cases; Central Region, zero cases; Southern Region, 5,672 non-corporate cases; Corporate Region, 792 cases, including 491 non-corporate and 301 corporate cases and Large Taxpayer Unit (LTU), Karachi has 135 corporate audit cases.
To facilitate the liquidation of pending audit cases, an incentive had already been provided to the taxpayers to revise their returns by paying 20 percent more tax as compared to the tax payable with the returns, the CBR added.
The CBR has issued instructions to the regional commissioners of income tax (RCITs) to motivate the taxpayers as well as tax bars to avail of this facility and ensure liquidation of pendency by Sep 15.
The CBR had selected only 4 percent cases for audit for “tax year 2003” under USAS, giving taxpayers the facility to approach zonal commissioners of income tax for deletion if their cases were wrongly picked.
The RCITs have set aside cases, which does not fall under the purview of any one of the laid down audit parameters collectively prepared by the regional commissioners to maintain uniformity in selection.
During “tax year 2003”, a total number of 547,613 business returns were filed by the corporate and non-corporate taxpayers and only 24,020 cases were selected for audit. The cases so selected constitute only 4 percent of the total number of business returns.
Moreover, the number of business returns did not include salary returns and statements filed under (Section 115 (4) of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001) under presumptive tax regime.
