Seven major commodities groups have contributed 67.4 percent of total customs duty collected during the first four months of the current fiscal year.
Giving details of the performance of collectorates of customs, CBR (member) fiscal research and statistic Dr Athar Maqsood informed the collectors' conference that only seven major revenue spinners have 67.4 percent share of the total customs duty during the period under review.
The items are: vehicles and parts (22.2 percent), edible oil and fats (13.4 percent), POL (10 percent), mechanical and electrical machinery (7.2 percent), plastics and its articles (3.9 percent), and iron and steel contributed 3.4 percent in the total customs duty collection during July-October 2006-07.
The quarterly conference of collectors of customs and collectors of appeals, which held here on Friday, reviewed the performance of the collectorates in the last quarter and evolved a strategy for revenue optimisation. The conference was chaired by CBR chairman and revenue division secretary-general M. Abdullah Yusuf.
The CBR (member) legal, in his presentation, told the conference that the opening pending balance of adjudication cases on July 1, 2006 was 1548. Following filing of fresh cases during July to October 2006, the total number of pending adjudication cases remained 5141 cases. Out of these cases, 4907 cases have been disposed of by October 31.
He said the board has disposed of a total of 78,000 tax appeals since 2003-04, whereas now number of appeals is 2000, which are all fresh. The conference was informed that the overall revenue collection during first four months (July-October) of current fiscal year has surpassed the target of Rs 236.2 billion.
CBR (member) human resource management (HRM) Muhammad Talha briefed the conference on the latest position on Internal Job Process (IJP) and development of carrier planning for CBR employees.
He asked collectors to complete service record of employees, including ACRs for timely completion of the process. In his concluding remarks, the CBR chairman called upon collectors to make concerted efforts for more revenue generation to raise tax-to-GDP ratio, which presently is not at the desired level.
He said: "We have to focus on potential areas, which have yet to be exploited. Tax machinery cannot afford to continue with historical problems. Tax officials have to change mindset and make the organisation efficient and transparent."
Speaking on the retrenchment of the staff, he made it categorically clear that under no circumstances the CBR will send any employee home forcefully. However, special package or golden handshake scheme can be offered to surplus employees.
Later, member, facilitation and taxpayer education (FATE), Habib Fakhruddin, who has the additional charge of member, tax policy and reforms, apprised the conference of the latest position regarding establishment of 11 modal customs collectorates across the country.
Earlier, a presentation on post-clearance audit (PCA) was made by the PCA project director. He outlined the concept, objectives, nature and techniques of the system.
He also briefly mentioned salient features of the existing PCA systems in other countries like Japan, UK, Ireland, Uganda, etc. He also presented the proposed model of PCA in Pakistan.