ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has framed a new IT policy under which Core Business Domain Team (CBDT) has been established to take decisions on putting in place modern and visionary tax related IT systems for e-integration of sales tax, federal excise duty, customs duty and income tax.
In this connection, the FBR on Saturday constituted a CBDT, headed by Shafiq Muhmmad, for implementation of the IT systems of the FBR, taking into account future developments and standardisation of business processes. Sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday that the Members of FBR will send the IT related requirements to the Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) through the Core Business Domain Team for development of software. Now, FBR Members cannot directly interact with the software developers, streamlining procedure for IT development.
Presently, a taxpayer is able to view all his declarations of sales tax, income tax, withholding tax and tax payments through the e-folders maintained at the FBR Web-Portal. This information is also available to the tax officials. The training of these officials is planned this year for effective use of the Integrated Tax Management System (ITMS).
Details show that in the absence of required specification documents (RSD), abundance of haphazard and ill-directed input from business domain, mushroom development of isolated IT systems, PRAL's undesirable involvement in business operations, lack of acceptance by the end users, training deficiencies etc, the Task Force, constituted by the Chairman FBR for implementation of IT systems, in the FBR HQ and the field formation has given following recommendations:
First, the FBR should constitute a full time Core Business Domain Team, comprising of selected officers from field formations and FBR HQ. Only such team should be authorised to co-ordinate the development/rectification of systems with duly authorised teams of PRAL.
Second, the Core Business Domain Team should be permanent in nature and responsible to a focal wing of FBR for its functions. Third, the PRAL should not be developing software on demand of individual wings of FBR; rather FBR's requirements should be centralised in the Core Business Domain Team, through a focal/regulatory wing. Fourth, Information Processing Divisions of RTOs and LTUs should be revitalised by enhancing their TORs including implementation, of IT systems in field formation and consolidating requirements of the field formation in respect of both income tax and sales tax. Fifth, the system development and implementation should be treated as a complete project by FBR. The project cycle must include paraphernalia of development along with a complete training package.
Sixth, Human Resource (HR) Wing of FBR and Directorates of Training shall be brought into the loop to consolidate the training policy and execution of training, respectively. Seventh, no system should be rolled out in the field formations without ascertaining the training needs and capabilities of users at the receiving end.
Eight, the procurement of hardware should be expedited to cater for the needs associated with implementation of these systems. Sources said that the FBR has laid down following Terms of Reference for the Core Business Domain Team: Under the short-term Terms of Reference, the consolidating and implementation related issues of immediate concern, identified by the users (narrated in the report of the Task Force) should have priority systems. The CBDT will co-ordinate with technical management (PRAL) of these systems to transitionally address the issues. It would also be engaged in assessment of users' readiness to implement priority systems. It would also identify gaps and devise "crash" training schedules in co-ordination with PRAL and HRM Wing of FBR. It would be responsible for removing the obvious duplications in functionality of smaller applications in favour of the comprehensive systems.
The Medium-Term objective of the CBDT is to review the functional and technical requirements document/BPR document of FBR to incorporate new processes relating to VAT, if any, and consolidating the final requirement documents. The CBDT will analyse all IT Systems with regard to their relevance and application in relation to the functional and technical requirement document. The CBDT would identify duplications and redundancies in the current applications and accordingly remove duplications by deleting redundant systems. It would also recommend changes to be brought in Standard Operating Procedures for effective implementation of the residual systems.
The long-term objective of the business domain team will be to reduce the IT Systems portfolio of FBR to a workable size fulfilling all the needs of an "Integrated Tax Management System" (ITMS). The team will also be responsible to publish training manual of ITMS and devise a comprehensive and on-going training program in consultation with HRM Wing, sources added.