A few sugar mills, cement units and textile units have changed their head offices sites after smelling selection of their cases for audit. For example, two leading cement manufacturers have deliberately changed their jurisdiction from one city to another to create hurdles in audit.
Similarly, same trend has been observed in sugar and textile sectors. If a unit is maintaining tax record at Lahore and its jurisdiction has been transferred to Islamabad, it would need considerable time to assign new audit team for examining the tax records.
As soon as letters for audit were received by some units, the jurisdictions were changed so that the auditors could not access their tax records. Sources said that some companies are not providing tax records to the auditors merely to delay audit proceedings against them.
Many units have also obtained several sales tax registration numbers (NTRNs) for each and every business activity. This has also created problems for the auditors. In many cases, factory is at a separate place, whereas head office at another place. This is also being done to confuse the auditors as well as the tax department, sources said.