Several tax officials have criticised a survey conducted by 'Gallup Pakistan' titled 'Stakeholders' Perception on the Quality of Services provided by Central Board of Revenue (CBR) and Employees Integrity Survey'.
The tax officials told Business Recorder on Tuesday that Gallup Pakistan had circulated a questionnaire for assessing the performance of CBR. The questionnaire contained some queries which could not be answered by any tax official by providing his/her name, they said, and added that the survey had asked to mention name, designation and concerned department in CBR, which meant to lose the job.
"Why should an official discuss about corruption level of its organisation when his/her job is at stake," they said. They said no guarantee was provided that their names would not be identified/divulged when the survey would be made public. Officials expressed fear that disciplinary action could be taken against them if they provided any information. They said that CBR circular clearly mentioned that no official would comment on CBR working, publicly.
THE QUESTIONNAIRE INCLUDED: general perceptions of tax reforms; services provided by Large Taxpayer Units/Medium Taxpayers Units; Human Resource related perceptions; transparency in sales tax refunds mechanism through Sales Tax Automated Refund Repository (STARR) etc impact of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism; introduction of self-assessment system (SAS); general perception about CARE - PACCS Pilot Project; Karachi, facilitation and tax education initiatives (Publications, Meetings, Workshops); Helpline, Websites, Software, Workshops; simplification of laws, rules, procedures; introduction of user-friendly forms with detailed instructions/e-filing; tax audit; transparency/adequacy of DTRE (Duty & Tax Remission for Export) Scheme; non-filers/under-reporters/non-taxpayers; integrity perception.
However, Gallup Pakistan representative Saima Adnan said that the survey was being conducted to get opinion from stakeholders about the working of the tax department, either tax officials or taxpayers.
She said that the main objective was to get end results after the inception of LTU/MTU and their successful operations. No one asked to mention his/her name forcibly on the questionnaire. She said that if anybody did not want to reveal his identity he/she may leave the demographics page blank. She said that in the data entry, names were omitted and only responses were recorder to finalise the survey.
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