LAHORE The Regional Tax Offices has processed 4,080 sales tax refund claims worth Rs 1.93 billion during first five months of the current financial year. In the corresponding period last year, the erstwhile Collectorate of Sales Tax and Federal Excise, Lahore had processed 2,197 claims involving amount of Rs 1.12 billion. Khalid Ejaz Mufti Office Superintendent Administration at the RTO said that in line with Federal Board of Revenues resolve to facilitate taxpayers by quick disposal of pending refund claims, both the Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) at Lahore have maximized issuance of Sales Tax Refunds for reducing the liquidity problems of tax payers. In this regard, refund processing units have been increased and additional manpower deployed to process refunds especially in the Textile Sector. He said that with the integration of Income Tax, Sales Tax and Federal Excise into Inland Revenue Service (IRS), there has been an unprecedented increase of 86 percent in processing of refunds this year as compared to last year. As many as 3,107 refund claims involving an amount of Rs 1.28 billion have been cleared during the months of October and November, 2010, as against the disposal of 543 claims involving refunds of Rs 257 Million in the corresponding months of the last financial year. He said that to ensure transparency and to forestall any possibility of loss of revenue due to unlawful refund claims; a stringent post refund audit is also being conducted by the RTOs.