Provision of revenue data to AGP: no objection if only reported figures are reconciled: FBR

The Federal Board of Revenue has no objection in providing revenue collection data to the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) only for reconciliation and verification of the reported FBR's field formations' figures. Sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday, the AGP has raised objection that the FBR's data processing centers DPC /Treasurers/DRS (Directorate of Research and Statistics) do not provide tax collection data to audit teams, which render these teams incapacitated to conduct meaningful audit of the department.
In a recent meeting, FBR Member Accounting informed that the Board's figures were regularly reconciled and data on taxes was provided to audit teams. The AGP officers were informed of this fact in a meeting held with them on October 23, 2012 in the Auditor General office. One of the AGP officers pointed out that tax collection data was not provided at Gujranwala. AGP team was informed that there was no default as such and the Revenue Receipt Audit (RRA) teams will be provided the required data. There was also consensus among the officers in the last meeting that tax collection data has to be provided by FBR field offices for RRA, audit.
Sources said that the Public Accounts Committee had censured FBR officials who were reportedly not providing record to auditors for verification of tax collection and expenditures in the past few years. The committee also sought action against the FBR officials who were showing negligence in recovery of taxes from taxpayers and directed that the officials should be penalised who did not show performance during the last seven years, so that they could not get promotion to the next grade. The committee directed FBR to provide record to the Audit within a month and also sought reason of those special cases where record was not presented to the Audit.