The government has decided to hire private investigating agencies to ensure recovery of taxes from defaulters in 2006-07. Sources told Business Recorder on Tuesday the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has taken the decision on failure of field formations to recover arrears of customs duty from tax defaulters.
Tax authorities have noted defaulters are not traceable at given addresses in most of the cases. The primary reason is that fake business addresses were given to customs authorities by importers/exporters. The board has decided that "services of private agencies/companies may be hired to trace such defaulters". Sources said customs authorities would finalise arrangement, including criteria for selection of private agencies/companies, to accomplish the task.
Presently, ''recovery rules'' do not empower the board to hire investigating agencies to trace defaulters. Thus, new recovery rules would be issued to legally empower agencies to recover the defaulted amount, sources added.
When contacted, tax experts said the board had constituted a task force, headed by additional collectors/deputy collectors in each collectorate of customs for speedy recovery of arrears from defaulters.
The task force was assigned to trace defaulters, who are not available on the given business addresses. Members of the task force were required to exchange list of tax defaulters with other collectorates to trace defaulters doing businesses in other parts of the country.
Experts said owners or board of directors of defaulting units might be engaged in conducting businesses in new areas falling within the jurisdiction of those collectorates where they have not defaulted on duties/taxes. It seems the task force has failed to recover the defaulted amount and now private agencies would be hired to carry out the job, they added.
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