Income Tax working system reorganised

The income tax administration has been reorganised on functional basis from August 1, with the abolition of a large number of tax circles and ranges under Regional Commissioner of Income Tax, Southern Region, (RCIT).
The new system is based on different tax divisions performing specialised functions, such as audit, enforcement, legal, information processing and tax facilitation. An Additional Commissioner of Tax will head each zone with the tax officers performing specialised jobs.
The previous system used to function on territorial basis, with one Income Tax Commissioner dealing with all tax issues falling under his jurisdiction.
RCIT Abrar Ahmed, talking to Business Recorder on Wednesday, described the new system as another milestone in CBR's tax reform agenda, which is aimed at facilitating the taxpayers prompting voluntary compliance.
The RCI T had issued an order on July 30 which said that "In supersession of all previous orders in respect of jurisdiction and in exercise of the powers conferred by sub section (2) of section 209 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001(XLIC of 2001), read with CBR Order No 2 of 2002, dated 01-07-2002, and in pursuance of CBR Notification C No 2(1)S. Asstt/Jud/02, Islamabad dated 27-07-2005, the Regional Commissioner of Income Tax, Southern Region, Karachi, is pleased to direct that the Income Tax Authorities specified in the Order shall perform the functions and exercise powers as stipulated in the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 and the repealed Wealth Tax Act, 1963 in respect of cases or classes of cases falling within the jurisdiction of taxation officer specified separately in the Order."
Under the new system, tax administration will be carried out by three zones, namely A, B, and E. Each Zone will have audit, enforcement, legal, information processing and tax facilitation.
The audit division will conduct audit of cases selected by enforcement, and will have powers to make amendments in assessment on the basis of concrete information. It will have seven taxation officers.
The enforcement division will be responsible for dealing with enforcement, recovery, tax demands and refunds and will be looked after by as many as 15 taxation officers in Zone A, 13 officers in Zone B, and 13 officers in Zone E.
The job of the Legal section in Tax zones will be to deal with tax adjudication and taking care of tax appeals. The Information Processing section will receive all tax returns, and tax facilitation section will provide guidance to taxpayers on all tax matters and the service will be provided through tax facilitation centres to be set up at various vintage points.