Revenue Mobilisation Project: Tax policy overhaul, revenue forecast top activities

Some of the major activities planned under the new Revenue Mobilisation Project of the Federal Board of Revenue included overhauling tax policy formulation mechanism and revenue forecasting along with enhancing accountability and transparency of tax administration.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Tuesday that the World Bank (WB) funded Revenue Mobilisation Project would be for one year starting March 2012 and concluding in March 2013. The list of activities planned under the proposed Revenue Mobilisation Project has been prepared by the FBR.
The activities identified under the Revenue Mobilisation Project included overhauling tax policy formulation and revenue forecasting; international workshop on Tax Revenue Forecasting; Tax Revenue Advisory; studies of the tax gap; review of the tax code to close loopholes and installation of an integrated one; international workshop on best practices in introducing VAT services by provincial government; international workshop on best practices in harmonising provincial/local taxes and study tour to promote exchange with or visit to overseas best practices at introducing VAT on services.
Other initiatives planned under the Revenue Mobilisation Project covers review of the FBR Tax Administration Strategy and Strengthening Core Functions to support performance-oriented management; design of FBR strategic and performance based program; design of a software for risk-based selection by centralised joint auditing between central FBR admin, and LTUs; elaboration of procedural and auditing sectoral manuals (oil & gas, banking, telecom, etc); design and implementation of a strategy to improve performance of tax appeals management; design of a manual for joint auditing procedures between customs and internal revenue for LTUs and review of the single taxpayer account between tax and customs. The new Revenue Mobilisation Project ALSO included design of a strategic plan for a performance-oriented management by customs; enhancing accountability & transparency of the tax administration; international workshop on world-wide best practices of M& E systems on tax administration; design & rolling out training of a user friendly M&E system for FBR; review of key performance indicators & streamlining; study on tax expenditure and preparation of its dissemination for regular inclusion in the annual budget; taxpayers' perception survey on the quality of FBR services recruitment of a tax auditor advisor for FTO; international advisor who can assist FTO office to become a center of excellence; study tour to visit 2 overseas best practice of tax ombudsman office; study on exploring synergy between FTO and FBR practices for effectively addressing tax mal-administration.
The Revenue Mobilisation Project would also be used for improving the integrated tax management system under a modern ad performance-based administration; user's survey of the ITMS system; hands on training of FBR senior management in using core applications of the ITMS; review and redesign of the core business development ITMS strategy; design and rolling out of customised tax collection reports for senior FBR management, parliament and the public; project management team; team leader; IT specialist; procurement specialist; FM specialist and business process specialist.