Asad Umar chairs meeting of FBR policy board

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Finance Asad Umar Wednesday chaired the first meeting of the Federal Board of Revenue Policy Board, which was established under the FBR Act 2007.

The finance minister is the chairman of the board whereas ministers for commerce, textile, industries and privatization are the ex-officio members along with chairmen of the Senate and National Assembly standing committees on finance and revenue. The FBR chairman are the secretary of the board.

Among the nominated members (in advisory capacity) were ministers Abdul Razak Dawood and Hammad Azhar, Senator Kauda Babar, Syed Javed (IT Professional ), Usman Yousaf Mubeen (Chairman NADRA) and Abdullah Yousaf (former chairman FBR), said a press release.

The FBR chairman gave a detailed briefing on the Bureau's working and specially mentioned the actions recently taken to improve the performance and told the meeting about separation of tax policy and administration, draft of FBR transformation plan, and Swiss avoidance of double taxation treaty ratified.

It was also informed that the FBR had identified 152,201 Pakistani nationals with undeclared assets abroad, retailers electronically linked with FBR, besides 6451 high net-worth non-filers issued notices with revenue recovered Rs 245 million.

It was further informed that 4,961potentially undeclared properties abroad identified whereas objective criteria performance management, integrity management unit were also created in the FBR.

All the ex-officio and nominated members congratulated the Finance Minister on the formation of the policy Board after such a long time and welcomed the stance of the PTI government to consult with non-governmental members for improvement of the Tax system of the country.

After the detailed briefing by the FBR chairman and view sharing by the members, it was decided that the Senate's Standing Committee on Law and Justice shall be asked to review FBR laws where criminal investigation agencies had an overlapping jurisdiction with FBR so that the authority of FBR may be ascertained.

The NADRA chairman was directed by the chair to start working on proposals for broadening of the tax base through the use of data already available at the NADRA data base, the suggestions will be reviewed by the policy board in detail for further action.

Abdullah Yousaf stressed on the need for systemization through automation so that the elements of harassment and use of discretionary powers may be minimized.

He was also directed by the chair to make detailed presentation on the Audit and inspection system of FBR and suggest improvements in the system. The presentation will be first shared with Minister of State of Revenue and later be brought to the policy Board for further action.

The Minister of State for Revenue said that it was his earnest desire that the FBR Policy Board may design ToRs for bridging the gap between policy and administration.

It was also decided that the Policy Board shall hold its regular meetings on quarterly basis and the next meeting will be held in mid of March.