The Planning Commission has asked the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to reduce overall number of staff in the field formations following automation of taxation system as agreed with the donors under the Tax Administration Reform Project (TARP).
Sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday that as a practice of FBR in the past couple of years no fresh induction in the clerical staff and field staff is being made keeping in view of the futuristic vision of the FBR, which is based on universal self-assessment scheme, automation, risk-based selective audit and gradual improvement of automated processes. After total automation of tax system, the staff in the field formations would be gradually reduced and left will be trained in automated systems, sources added.
The FBR has received a letter of the Planning Commission on the TARP, which concluded on December 31, 2011. According to the Planning Commission, Planning Commission as a part of its regular exercise of monitoring of public sector development project (PSDP) financed projects, has field monitored the subject project in order to assess the physical and financial progress. The project is sponsored and executed by the Revenue Division.
The TARP project started in 2005 was supposed to be completed by 2009, but has been delayed by two years. The project stand closed by December, 2011 and formalities are being finalised in this regard which are likely to be completed by April, 2012. The original cost of PC-I was approved at Rs 9500.617 million. But in the revised PC-I was approved on August 20, 2009 at a reduced cost of Rs 6,472.817 million (a reduction of Rs 3,027.8 million) due to development of four softwares at the facilities available with Federal Board of Revenue and reducing the number of Tax Facilitation Centres (TFCs), Regional Tax Offices(RTOs), Modern Custom Collectorates (MCCs) and Transit Accommodation from 103 to 57.
The project has been closed by end of December, 2011 at cost of Rs 5,528.0 million against revised project cost of Rs 6,472.817 million. All the physical progress has been achieved, ie (a) establishment of 57 RTOs, MCCs, TFC and Transit Accommodation, (b) 11,445 machinery and equipment (as per PC-I target) were procured and distributed, (c) 194 vehicles were purchased and distributed, and (d) Four software ie Integrated Tax Management System (ITMS), Human Resource Information System (HRIS), Material Management and Financial (MM&FI) and Data Warehouse Software have been completed and are functional. Tax revenue of Rs 1,558 billion have been collected during 2010-11 against PC-I set target of Rs 1,350 billion, Planning Commission said.
It is recommended that after the automation of taxation system, the staff may be reduced as agreed with the donors. The PC-IV may be submitted to the Planning Commission at an early date by the FBR, Planning Commission added. Sources added that Auditor General of Pakistan has undertaken overall Performance Audit of TARP during January - June 2011. Apart from that Auditor General of Pakistan also undertakes regular Annual Audit of TARP. Besides this, World Bank evaluates performance of TARP through its various Review Missions. In the TARP PC-I there is no provision of funds to engage any external firms for conducting performance audit. The issue has already been taken up with the Planning Division for guidance.
During 2010-11, substantial progress has been made for procurement of IT equipment, completion of Infrastructure Development, ie Establishment of MCCs, TFCs, construction of Transit Accommodations for RTOs/LTUs and Training of FBR''s employees. Most of the activities have either been completed or at advance stage of completion. Initially, the Data Warehouse and ITMS were defined as separate projects, but subsequently due to technical considerations, it was made part of overall solution developed by Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) for ITMS project. The Data Warehouse is, therefore, being developed as part of the ITMS project.
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