Official sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday that this is for the first time that the tax authorities will make a total shift from the old policy of unilateral budget preparation and the new scheme would be announced in March to facilitate general public.
The CBR has decided to practically involve all the stakeholders, particularly business community, in the budget preparation exercise. The customs budget will be given final touches in March and it would be made available to the general public for comments.
The sources said that the CBR has convened a number of meetings with all the economic ministries and the budget would be formulated in consultation with the private sector also taking into account feedback of collectors of customs.
The officials said that the problem of anomalies arose after the announcement of budget every year, would be effectively addressed through this new scheme. The first quarter of every fiscal was spent on time consuming exercise of resolving budget anomalies.
Now, the CBR will get the feedback of the business community prior to the announcement of the federal budget and an error-free tax-friendly budget would be presented in June.
Outlining the basic goals of the customs budget in 2005-06, the officials said that the basic thrust of the customs budget would be on measures for enhancing export-led growth in the next financial year, removal of hindrances in the smooth functioning of business/trade and acceleration of the economic growth.
The budget will focus on tariff rationalisation for industrial sectors, removal of anomalies, simplification of procedures and reduction in the number of concessionary notifications and their subsequent merger into tariff for application of effective rates of customs duty on raw materials/items.
To give legal cover to the harmonised standardised code (HS) for exports, amendments will be made so that the import data of HS Code should also be applicable on exported products.
As per the First Schedule of the Customs Act 1969, HS Code includes product code, nomenclature and rate of duty.
The customs budget will also focus on legal changes in the Customs Act, 1969; facilitation measures for trade and industry; simplified and facilitative legal mechanism for the business community and enforcement of customs laws to facilitate traders under the WTO regime as well as helping the customs authorities of Saarc to interact freely for promotion of regional trade.