A World Bank (WB) mission would visit the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) from March 30 to April 1 to review the Tax Administration Reform Project (TARP). Sources told Business Recorder on Saturday that the WB supervision mission would meet FBR Chairman Ahmed Waqar and his team of tax managers to review the progress on information technology projects, like automation and implementation of reforms.
The mission would also meet the Director General of Intelligence and Investigation and visit field tax offices in Faisalabad and Multan to witness the working of income tax, sales tax and excise duty under one roof at the reformed units.
Due to security reasons, officials of the FBR Tax Policy and Reforms (TPR) Wing have personally delivered the agenda of the WB programme to the relevant members and other senior FBR officials. The letter of intent (LoI) submitted by the government to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) board for formal approval of the 7.6 billion-dollar stand by facility envisaged a planned seminar to review tax policy and administration.
This seminar was hosted by the FBR at Lahore in December 2008 and was attended by the World Bank and IMF teams. The objective of the current World Bank mission is, therefore, to evaluate if the recommendations made at the seminar are being incorporated in the tax policy.
According to the WB schedule, the mission would convene individual meetings with the FBR members, including the member, Inland Revenue; member, Legal, and member, TPR, at the FBR headquarters. Sources said that the meeting would particularly review the Information Technology Plan of the FBR to update returns/refund payments, integrated tax system, rollout of Pakistan Customs Computerised System (PACCS) and electronic maintenance of data etc on e-files.
The mission would also review the progress on the restructuring of the tax administration, Human Resource Management issues, automation projects of Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) and current status of reformed units across the country.
THE FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE WORLD BANK:
-- Implementation of a comprehensive business process re-engineering (BPR) strategy.
-- The co-location and full integration of income tax and sales tax has been achieved by establishment of FBR Inland Revenue Wing, however, electronic integration of taxes is yet to be achieved.
-- Effective steps for prevention of revenue leakage.
-- Compliance management included establishment of dedicated Task Force to bring un-registered taxpayers into the tax net and pursue non-filers and short-filers of sales tax and Federal excise duty. The overall objective of the project is to make FBR management more efficient and effective. The project aims at facilitating and promoting voluntary compliance, and more equitable application of tax laws.
The strategy focuses on improving its organisational efficiency, promoting compliance through strengthening audit and transparent as well as high quality tax service, improving trade facilitation through modern and internationally acceptable customs procedures and improving the integrity of tax administration.
Moreover, new human resource policy framework and management system combined with modernised procedures and institutional structure will increase transparency and integrity of the tax administration. The project also aims to strengthen tax administration to contribute to the achievement of fiscal targets and facilitate the collection of maximum revenue.
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