Fourth tranche of $1.2 billion from IMF by month-end: FBR chief

Federal Board of Revenue Chairman Sohail Ahmed on Friday said Pakistan would receive fourth tranche of $1.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund under the stand-by arrangement facility by month-end. On the conclusion of a ceremony arranged for selection of audit cases through random balloting at the FBR, he told reporters the IMF board of directors is scheduled to meet on December 23 to give approval to the fourth tranche worth US $1.2 billion under SBA.
He said 90 percent issues had already been settled with the IMF and the remaining were resolved in Washington during the first week of December. Responding to a query, the FBR Chairman said the government will reduce non-tax expenditure and new tax measures are expected keeping in view the revenue collection position in January 2010. We are also expecting some assistance pledged through Kerry-Lugar package and the Friends for development in quake and war-hit areas.
About the reform process, he said the World Bank review mission has recommended to its board of directors two years extension in the Tax Administration Reform Project (Tarp). "The WB mission will strongly recommend to its Board of Directors to extend the deadline by two years from December 31, 2009 to December 2011," he added.
During review of the TARP at Dubai, the WB mission expressed satisfaction over the reform process initiated by FBR. To a question, he said that the high level experts of the World Bank and the international VAT experts have shared their views on the first draft of the VAT Law 2010. We have shared the draft of the new law with the international experts and learnt from their experiences.
Pakistani team learnt from the experts of Australia, Canada and other developed countries. The FBR VAT drafting committee would spend 2-3 days in Lahore to finalise the draft of the new VAT Law 2010. This is for the first time that the FBR has held audit selection process publicly in the presence of the representatives of trade bodies, tax bar associations and media, Sohail Ahmed concluded.