The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has started physical verification of 4,500 companies/firms, registered with the sales tax department, whose available information could not match with income tax database.
Official sources told Business Recorder on Monday that the Board has issued instructions to the collectors of sales tax to verify the given business places or addresses of the sales taxpayers whose National Tax Numbers (NTNs) did not match the ''NTN Master Index''.
The exercise is part of updating data for establishment of Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) for which latest profiles of taxpayers are required. The computerised systems of the RTOs would only accept complete profiles of taxpayers, sources said.
They said that out of 80,000 sales tax return filers, data of 4,500 taxpayers has been placed under ''suspended list''. These taxpayers appear to be untraceable and their NTNs are not available with the Board database. The Collectors would check their business places to ascertain whether they are in business. They said that the Board-in-Council had taken the decision to place the sales taxpayers without NTN under a separate block. On checking, 4,500 taxpayers were identified whose data needed to be verified.
The scrutiny of tax profiles included physical verification of the given addresses, amount of tax paid and refund claimed by these units, sources added.