The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has informed the Tax Reform Co-ordination Group (TRCG) that the Tax Policy Unit of the Revenue Division would become fully operational in January, 2012. Sources told Business Recorder here on Wednesday that the issue of transferring policy functions from the Inland Revenue (IR) and Customs Wings to the Revenue Division has been discussed during the last meetings of the TRCG.
During one of the past meeting, FBR Chairman Salman Siddiqui has apprised the committee that one Additional Secretary, Shahid Rahim Sheikh (BPS-21; Customs Group) has already been posted in the Revenue Division. He further informed that another officer from the IR Group shall soon be notified for posting in the Revenue Division. The Policy Unit at the Revenue Division shall be fully operational during January, 2012. Chairman FBR emphasised that the new look of FBR should be based on professionalism with performance based salaries and incentive structures following functioning of the Policy Unit of the Revenue Division.
Sources said that the Policy Unit would exclusively deal with the tax policy and the FBR would be confined to operations/enforcement side. The Revenue Division would clearly define the role of tax officials dealing with tax policy under the Revenue Division and Members of the FBR. The separation of tax policy from operations would ensure accountability, transparency and smooth functioning of the tax machinery for enforcement, recovery and tax collection at the level of the field formations. According to the proposal, the tax policy would be chalked out by the policymakers of the Revenue Division. The FBR would be given the basic task of enforcement and operations with input in the federal budget. The federal budget, which is the biggest instrument of the tax policy, would be handled by the Revenue Division with the input of the FBR. It has been proposed to set up a small unit comprising 4-5 senior tax officials to run the Tax Policy Unit of the Revenue Division.
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