In order to facilitate the citizens, FBR constituted three special committees to prepare a single sales tax portal across the country, ARY News reported on Monday. According to the Chairman Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) recently released a notification, a total of three special committees were constituted with each comprised of 10 officers. As per the FBR notification, the supervisory committee consists of grade-21 government officers including the member IT, Dr Nassir, and reform member of grade 21, Ardsher Saleem. Meanwhile, in the implementation committee, the chairman of FBR appointed grade-20 government officers including Zainul Abideen and director program Muhammad Khalid.

Last month, the Caretaker Prime Minister (PM) Anwaarul Haq Kakar reiterated his government’s priority to widen the tax net and instructed all the relevant departments to work collectively for bringing in tax reforms. The prime minister issued the directives while chairing a meeting to discuss the matters pertaining to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Privatisation Division. During the meeting, PM Kakar emphasised the need to improve coordination between federal and provincial governments to carry out tax documentation, saying that the FBR was an important component of the government machinery.

He instructed the authorities concerned to fulfill the legal obligations to accelerate the privatisation of loss-making state-owned enterprises and asked all the federal ministries to cooperate with the Privatisation Division. In the briefing, the prime minister was told that the FBR was determined to achieve the tax collection target of Rs9415 billion. The Board has collected Rs 538 billion in July this year against the target of Rs534 billion. In August, the tax collection of Rs669 billion was made against the target of Rs 648 billion.

It was told that the domestic tax collection has witnessed an increase of 38.7 percent during 2023-24 comparing the previous year. PM Kakar was told that digital tools were also being used to enhance the tax-to-GDP ratio and the FBR’s database was also being linked with other departments.

 
Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)