Customs and Income Tax groups will not be merged: CBR chief

Chairman Central Board of Revenue (CBR) Abdullah Yousuf has said that Customs and Income Tax Groups will not be merged and both will continue as two separate services in future. However, services of Sales Tax, Central Excise and Income Tax department will be housed under one roof in order to integrate their performance and efficiency as well as to facilitate the public, he added.
He was replying to queries raised by probationers of 31st Common Batch of Income Tax and Customs Groups at Directorate General of Income Tax (Training and Research) here on Wednesday.
Member CBR Human Resources Zafar Osmani was also present on the occasion.
Abdullah Yousuf said so far CBR has posted 26 officers of Income Tax Group in Sales Tax Department and primarily the decision was taken to fill in the vacant seats in the latter. As far as future arrangements in this respect are concerned, Income Tax and Customs Groups will continue to exist as two distinct divisions. However, Sales Tax, Central Excise and Income tax departments will be sharing information under one roof. At present there is no arrangement to share information between them.
He said that the existing gap between Income Tax and Customs departments regarding incentives and facilities will also be bridged on the pattern of Large Tax Payers Units of Karachi and Lahore. He added that the facilities being provided to officials at LTUs would also be replicated in the 12 Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) which will start functioning by end of next year, replacing the existent circle system.
He agreed with a questioner that present wages of tax officials are very low and now focus is being shifted to look after this aspect. To another question he said as for government spending on development of public infrastructure is concerned it is very low because of limited financial resources but because of enhanced revenue the government will be able to bring improvement on this side.
Earlier, addressing the function, Yousuf said that CBR is undergoing major structural changes which is need of the hour. The world has moved on very competitive and dynamic environment "and if we do not go along with it, we will be left behind," he stated. He said that these changes would help enhance the productivity level in the country, which is unfortunately lowest in the world.
"We can compete in terms of IQ level with any body in the world but the thing we need is to be competitive to meet the challenges of changing world scenario. You will survive only when you remain competitive", he said. He said that human resource management is figuring first time in the country and CBR is attaching top priority to training of the officials.
Talking about structural changes in the CBR, he said during the last two-three years a lot of changes have taken place in CBR and the introduction of USAS is an important part of it "whereby we have put the burden of responsibility on the taxpayers and tried to remove mistrust between taxpayers and the collectors". This has not been done overnight but after studying the systems of various other countries, he pointed out.
In the last budget CBR had also made various changes in the system and now it will take more bold decisions to improve the fiscal environment in tax departments. "For this purpose, the foremost thing we need is to make the whole system very efficient and transparent." He said that high level of growth is possible when you provide better environment to industry and for which CBR has a major role to deliver, as 85 percent of the revenue of the government comes through tax machinery of CBR.
"I am very positive about the efforts and changes we have made so far and we will soon be able to change the whole environment," he said.
About training programme he said CBR is spending a lot of resources on training of CBR officials and for this purpose it has received 150 million dollars from World Bank and other donors which will be utilised in next three years to change the working environment, including automation to reduce the manual interaction with taxpayers. "Our future lies in the change and we have to change the environment whether we like it or not," he remarked.
Later replying to a query about increase in revenue collection Yousuf said it has been possible due to increase in the direct tax revenue. The four months collection of the current fiscal year is 22 percent higher as compared to the same period of the last year, he said.
When his attention was drawn to the unrest prevailing among the officials of Customs group because of appointment of Income tax officials in Sales Tax department he said there was nothing unusual in transferring officials of one department to another government department and it is not against the law. "We can do so under Rule 10 of the Service Act."
Member CBR Human Resources Zafar Osmani also spoke on the occasion while in his welcome address Haji Ahmed, Director General of DoT presented the report of activities of Directorate and training courses being offered there.