ISLAMABAD, Aug 13: The tax authorities have claimed to have detected 42,381 fake documents through the newly established automated refund system during the financial year 2002-03 preventing undue refunds.

Member Sales Tax, Ramzan Bhatti told Dawn on Wednesday that following the establishment of STARR, an automated refund system on October 1, 2002, about 42,381 fake documents were detected involving an amount of Rs1.826 billion.

Mr. Bhatti said, that it was only due to the automated system that the tax authorities have stopped the undue payment of sales tax refunds since the establishment of STARR system.

He said the automated refund system is aimed at creating an efficient and effective sales tax refund system through automation, which speeds up genuine refund claims while preventing undue refund payments.

Elaborating further, he said that fake documents detected under sales tax invoices through this system included- documents of 7926 black listed suppliers filed for claim of refunds of Rs371.9 million; 3026 documents of closed suppliers for Rs73.7 million; 2718 documents of de-registered suppliers for Rs61.1 million; 1848 documents of duplicate invoices involving amount of Rs106.6 million; 4200 documents of exceed declared for an amount of Rs226.9 million; 2776 documents of nil filer(supplier) for Rs161.1 million and 17569 documents of non-filer(supplier)for an amount of Rs665.8 million and 96 documents of short filer for an amount of Rs0.3 million, respectively.

During the same period, through the system the member said that around 910 duplicate shipping bills were detected involving an amount of Rs136.01 million and around 77 document under objection involving an amount of Rs16.08 million, respectively.

According to the member, the total number of refund cases received through this system were 20011 by end June 31, 2003. Out of which 19,104 were verified from STARR.