The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has scanned all income tax returns with declared income of Rs 0.2 million or more, including corporate returns, for compilation of comprehensive database at the Centralised Data Entry Centre at Islamabad. CBR Member Information Management System (IMS) Amir Z A Chaudhry told Business Recorder here on Monday that the data entry exercise would be completed by January 30, 2005, which would be far ahead of schedule.
He said that the CBR has scanned all important information of corporate returns and returns with Rs 0.2 million or more declared income. The CBR wants to ensure that each page of corporate income tax returns must be scanned for reference purposes. The centre is actively engaged in obtaining images of all income tax returns of corporate sector for tax year 2004.
The idea behind scanning returns with Rs 0. 2 million or more income is to focus on returns involving huge amount as compared to returns belonging to small taxpayers.
The images of corporate returns will streamline, as data will be available on computer even if the file is misplaced. The department has already scanned 0.25 million wealth statements last year, Amir said.
He said that the exercise of income tax data entry in Islamabad would be completed by January 30, 2005 with the help of 140 data entry operators specially hired for this job.
In this regard, the centre is daily capturing data of 20,000 returns. The data entry of income tax returns of Northern Region has been completed and returns have been sent back. The data entry of Eastern Region, Lahore and Central Region Multan will be completed within one week.
Similarly, the income tax returns of Karachi will soon reach Islamabad and data entry will be done for carrying out analysis in minimum possible time.
Amir said that the CBR has also started quick checking of returns for carrying out analysis of these returns. Last year, data entry exercise was completed in 140 days.
The data entry was checked five times to ensure accuracy. Even the data captured was matched with the original income tax returns eliminating chances of error. The CBR has prepared 100 reports on the basis of data captured at the centre for analysis.
Member IMS said that CBR is making efforts this year to accurately capture data on income tax returns.
The format of the new returns ensures availability of basic information required for data entry. The CBR wants to ensure that returns with complete information reach Islamabad for data entry.
He added that the data captured for the 'tax year 2004' will be given to the sales tax department for proper utilisation.