The Federal Board of Revenue may distribute workload of Inland Revenue (IR) Wing by creating two new posts ie FBR Member IR Income Tax and FBR Member IR Sales Tax. It is learnt here on Thursday that the FBR was considering two options in this regard.
Either the new set-up would be based on geographical distribution like FBR Members North and South or tax based distribution ie FBR Member IR Income Tax and FBR Member IR Sales Tax. Presently, the FBR is examining these proposals in the light of experiment of a single post of FBR Member IR. However, it depends on the tax managers whether to reduce the workload of IR Wing by creating two new posts or not. In case such a proposal is being finalised, the FBR will move a summary to the Ministry of Finance for approval.
Presently, the IR Wing is overloaded with the work of both the income tax and sales tax and creation of separate posts of FBR Member IR Income Tax and FBR Member IR Sales Tax would be instrumental in early disposal of cases of sales tax and income tax.
In the past, the FBR Member Domestic Operations (North) was responsible for supervising domestic tax operations of northern field offices. The DGs of RTOs Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Abbottabad and LTUs Islamabad and Lahore were required to report to him. He was also doing the job of monitoring revenue collection and ensuring achievement of revenue targets by northern field offices. Any other duties assigned by Chairman FBR. The FBR Member Domestic Operations (South) was responsible for supervising domestic tax operations of southern field offices. The DGs of RTOs ie Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Multan, Faisalabad, Quetta and LTU Karachi were required to report to him. He was also monitoring revenue collection and ensuring achievement of revenue targets by southern field offices. Any other duties are assigned by the FBR Chairman.
In January 2011, the Board had reduced the number of FBR Members from 12 to nine under the revised organisational structure of the Board with a view to remove overlapping of functions and continuation of reforms in the tax administration. Under the organisational structure of the FBR notified in January 2011, the Board had abolished the slots of FBR Member Domestic Operations North and FBR Member Domestic Operations South whereas the post of FBR Member Direct Tax Policy and FBR Member Indirect Tax Policy were merged into a single post of FBR Member Inland Revenue. Similarly, the posts of the FBR Member Customs Operations and FBR Member Customs Policy were also merged into a single position of FBR Member Customs.
The following eight members were permanent Members of the Board: Member Strategic Planning and Statistics (SP&S); Member Inland Revenue Service (IRS); Member Customs; Member Legal; Member Enforcement and Accounting (E&A); Member (Taxpayers Audit); Member (Administration) and Member Facilitation and Taxpayer Education (FATE). The post of Member Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) was not a permanent post.
Under the previous set-up, 12 Members who had directly reported to the FBR Chairman, included FBR Member Enforcement and Accounting, FBR Member Direct Tax Policy, FBR Member Indirect Tax Policy, FBR Member Customs Operations, FBR Member Customs Policy, FBR Member Domestic Operations North, FBR Member Domestic Operations South, FBR Member Taxpayer's Audit, FBR Member Legal, FBR Member Administration, FBR Member Strategic Planning and Statistics along with FBR Member Taxpayer Education and Facilitation.
Following implementation of revamped structure in January 2011, the new set-up covered FBR Member Inland Revenue, FBR Member Enforcement and Accounting FBR Member Customs, FBR Member Taxpayer Audit, FBR Member Legal FBR Member Administration, FBR Member Strategic Planning and Statistics and FBR Member Taxpayer Education and Facilitation. There was no change in the number of support FBR members.