ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Dr Muhammad Ashfaq Ahmed, Saturday, reviewed the progress on the formulation of Inland Revenue Code to harmonise all inland taxation laws and maximise facilitation of the taxpayers.

Sources told Business Recorder that a meeting was held at the FBR House on Saturday to have an update on the project and it expressed satisfaction over the performance of the relevant team.

The expert team briefed on the drafting of the new laws in line with the best international practices.

Dr Muhammad Iqbal, retired Member Inland Revenue (Policy) is leading the project.

Chairman FBR, Member IR Policy Afaque Ahmed Qureshi, Hamid Ateeq, Choudhry Tariq, and Amjad Zubair Tiwana are the senior officer. Several chiefs and secretaries of the FBR, tax expert Habib Fakhruddin, and another senior tax consultant are members of the committee.

The FBR will enforce a new harmonised and simplified Inland Revenue Code from July 1, 2022, combining the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, the Sales Tax Act, 1990, the Federal Excise, 2005, and the Islamabad Capital Territory (Sales Tax on Services) Ordinance, 2001.

The new law would ensure ease of doing business by removing multiplicity of taxing statutes and a plethora of rules and regulations devised to operationalise them.

The FBR, on domestic side, implements and enforces four major tax laws, i.e., the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, the Sales Tax Act, 1990, the Federal Excise, 2005, and the Islamabad Capital Territory (Sales Tax on Services) Ordinance, 2001.

These four tax statutes are then supported by equal number of rules compiled in voluminous books comprising the Income Tax Rules, 2002, the Sales Tax Rules, 2006, the Federal Excise Rules, 2005, and the Islamabad Capital Territory (Sales Tax on Services) Rules, 2001. Resultantly, a taxpayer has to consult practically eight law books in order to engage with the tax system and pay off his/her tax liability.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022